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BV  4207  .H66  1888 

Hood,  Edwin  Paxton, 

1820- 

1885. 

''■',.  -  ' 

The  vocation  of  the 

preach 

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THE  VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


Fijfes 


THE 


VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


E.    PAXTON    HOOD, 

AUTHOR   OF    "THK  THRONS  OF  ELOQUENCE,"    "  THK  WORLD  OF    FBOVBRB   AND  PARABLE,' 
"  ROBERT  HALL,"   ETC 


New  York: 

FUNK  &  WAGNALLS,   Publishers, 

1 8  and  20  Astor  Place. 

1888. 


PRESS  OP 

FUNK  &  WAGNALLS, 
18  and  20  Astor  Place, 

NEW  YOEK 


PREFACE. 


TO  those  of  the  Author's  friends  who  have  read  his 
late  volume,  "  The  Throne  of  Eloquence,"  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  present  work  will  be  rather  the  fulfilment 
of  an  expectation  than  a  surprise;  they  will  recognise  in 
it  the  second  of  what  was  intended  to  have  been  a  series 
of  volumes  on  pulpit  work  and  workers,  partly  consist- 
ing of  chapters  from  previous  works,  long  out  of  print, 
and  partly  the  result  of  a  more  recent  course  of  lectures, 
delivered  in  Boston,  U.S.  But  our  readers  know  how, 
suddenly,  before  these  hopes  could  be  fulfilled,  or  ven 
the  present  volume  completed,  that  "  evening "  came 
which  was  to  our  writer  "  his  Sabbath  morning  of  eternal 
rest."  Such  a  possibility  had  often  been  anticipated  by 
him  ;  and  frequently,  as  suggestive  thoughts  and  feelings 
thronged  brain  and  heart,  he  would  say,  "  Ah,  I  have  so 
many  books  I  want  to  write,  so  many  sermons  I  want  to 
preach,  but  I  shall  die,  and  not  do  half  I  want  to  do  !  " 

It  was  on  Thursday,  June  the  4th,  1885,  whilst  he  was 
preparing  the  chapter  on  "  Puritan  Adams,"  that  he 
suddenly  expressed  his  inability  to  complete  it.  "  I  can- 
not finish  this  now,"  he  said ;  "  I  feel  I  am  working  at  too 
great  a  strain,  and  can  do  justice  neither  to  my  publishers 
nor  myself.  I  must  ask  them  to  give  me  a  little  longer 
time  ;  I  shall  work  better  after  my  holiday."  Needless  to 
say,  his  kind  publishers  at  once,  and  with  much  sympathy, 
granted  the  desired  reprieve.  But  for  him  the  vesper 
bell  had  chimed,  and  his  work  was  over.  ^^  After  my 
holiday  I  *"     He  was  looking  forward  to  the  rest  and  re- 


vi  PREFACE. 

freshment  of  Alpine  heights,  to  the  sunshine  of  Italian 
cities,  to  a  return  with  renewed  vigour  to  the  work  he 
loved ;  but  God  had  "  prepared  some  better  thing "  for 
him, — the  "everlasting hills,"  "  the  Golden  City,"  the  "rest 
which  shall  be  glorious,"  and  "  life,  even  life  for  ever- 
more !  "  Early  in  the  morning  of  Friday,  June  the  12th, 
"  God's  beautiful  angel "  came,  and,  with  a  touch,  unlocked 
for  him  the  gates  of  immortality. 

It  is  most  exquisitely  pathetic  to  her,  who  was  honoured 
to  relieve  him  in  some  slight  way  in  the  more  mechanical 
part  of  his  work,  to  remember  how,  as  she  read  to  him 
some  of  the  passages  quoted  from  James  Parsons,  espe- 
cially those  on  "Heaven,"  and  "Glorious  things  are  spoken 
of  thee,  O  city  of  God,"  he  leaned  eagerly  forward  as  he 
listened,  and  with  clasped  hands,  and  eyes  radiant  through 
rapturous  tears,  exclaimed,  "  Isn't  it  beautiful  ?  Is  it  not 
beautiful  ?"  as  though  already  he  enjoyed  a  foretaste  of  that 
better  country,  which  was  for  him  not  "  very  far  off." 

The  chapters  subsequent  to  that  on  "Adams"  were 
found  laid  aside  together  with  the  earlier  portions  of  the 
manuscript,  and  were  evidently  designed  by  him  to  be 
used  in  completing  the  volume,  so  that  there  has  been  no 
difficulty  in  carrying  out  his  intention  in  this  particular, 
although,  possibl)',  his  arrangement  of  these  later  papers 
might  have  been  different ;  but  surely  his  readers  will  all 
feel  that  in  the  beautiful  closing  pages  of  this  volume  its 
Author's  sacrament  of  work  found  its  fitting  benediction. 

And  so  this  last  book  goes  forth  upon  its  way,  unfathered, 
and  without  the  advantage  of  its  Author's  supervision  or 
correction ;  but  she,  who  thus  mothers  it,  feels  that  she  may 
claim  for  it  the  affectionate  indulgence  which,  in  spite  of 
fault  or  defect,  ever  surrounds  with  a  sacred  and  pathetic 
tenderness  the  little  child  who  is  born  into  this  world  after 
its  father  has  passed  away. 

Brixton  Rise, 

April  22nd,  1886. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP.  FAGB 

L  THE   INSTINCT   FOR   SOULS        .  •  i  i  i  >         I 

II.  THE      preacher's      VOCATION. — THE       INSTINCT      FOR 

SOULS 29 

III.  FREDERICK    WILLIAM    FABER,   THE    PREACHER   OF    THE 

ORATORY  AND  THE   CLOISTER    .  .  ,  ,  .72 

IV.  MEDIAEVAL  AND   POST-MEDIEVAL  PREACHERS  .  .      93 
V.   THE       GREAT       ENGLISH       CARDINAL:       JOHN       HENRY 

NEWMAN 122 

VI.  CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION 162 

VII.   DR.   EDWARD  ANDREWS,   OF  WALWORTH  .  .  .   2o6 

VIII.   THE  PAPER   IN   THE   PULPIT 232 

IX.   JAMES   PARSONS       .  .  ,  .  .  .  .  .   261 

X.   BILLINGSGATE   IN  THE  PULPIT 309 

XI.  JAMES  WELLS 335 

XII.  THE    PULPIT    OF  THE    SEVENTEENTH    AND   EIGHTEENTH 

CENTURIES 352 

XIII.   PURITAN   ADAMS       ,  '        '  .  ,  ,  .  .  .  386 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP,  PAGE 

XIV,   THE  PREACHERS   OF   WILD   WALES  ....   413 

XV.  THE  PLACE  OF  THE   PULPIT   IN    POETRY  AND  FICTION   .  44I 
XVI.   SOME  VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE  FROM  A  PREACHER'S 

POINT  OF  VIEW  .......  460 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS. 

BEFORE  we  draw  up  the  curtain  we  will  relate 
an  anecdote,  which  may  be  also  a  parable, 
he  good  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  once  stepped  down 
^nto  the  cloisters  of  his  monastery,  and  laying  his 
hand  on  the  shoulder  of  a  young  monk,  "  Brother," 
said  he,  "  let  us  go  down  into  the  town  and  preach." 
So  they  went  forth,  the  venerable  father  and  the 
young  man.  And  they  walked  along  upon  their 
way,  conversing  as  they  went.  They  wound  their 
way  down  the  principal  streets,  round  the  lowly 
alleys  and  lanes,  and  even  to  the  outskirts  of  the 
town,  and  to  the  village  beyond,  till  they  found 
themselves  back  at  the  monastery  again.  Then  said 
the  young  monk,  "  Father,  when  shall  we  begin  to 
preach  .-' "  And  the  father  looked  kindly  down  upon 
his  son  and  said,  "My  child,  we  have  been  preaching; 
we  were  preaching  while  we  were  walking.  We 
have  been  seen — looked  at ;  our  behaviour  has  been 
remarked  ;  and  so  we  have  delivered  a  morning's 
sermon.  Ah !  my  son,  it  is  of  no  use  that  we 
walk  anywhere  to  preach  unless  we  preach  as  we 
walk." 

Perhaps  this  story  is  not  so  well  known  that  its 

I 


2  THE    VOCA  TION  OF  THE  PRE  A  CHER. 

introduction  "  almost  as  the  preface  of  the  following 
pages,  may  seem  impertinent  ;  the  cynic,  ill  disposed 
to  the  race  of  preachers,  may  see  in  it  only  the 
sanction  of  seeming  without  reality  ;  but  the  wiser 
mind  may  take  it  not  only  as  a  little  glimpse  of  an 
ancient  Father,  who  surely  was  amongst  the  oddest, 
if  most  wonderful  of  all  mediaeval  preachers,  but  also, 
further,  as  an  exposition  of  that  apostolic  maxim, 
"See  that  ye  walk  circumspectly,  giving  none  offence 
in  anything,  that  the  ministry  be  not  blamed,"  or 
that  injunction  of  the  preacher's  Master  and  Model, 
"As  you  go,  preach  !" 

But  the  vocation  of  the  preacher !  Ought  we  in 
one  word,  at  the  outset,  to  define  what  that  vocation 
is  ?  And  what  should  it  be  but — to  say  it  in  a 
sentence — the  instinct  for  sonls  ?  Surely  it  is  true, 
"  He  that  winneth  souls  is  wise ; "  and  said  the 
apostle,  "  We  persuade  men."  That  winning  of  souls 
has  very  often  been  interpreted  in  a  very  low, 
narrow,  frequently  bigoted,  and  sectarian  sense  ; 
but  what  a  noble  ambition  it  is,  to  obtain  a  purchase 
over  men's  minds  and  affections,  for  the  purpose  of 
elevating  their  character,  of  enlarging  their  under- 
standing, and  of  soothing  their  griefs  and  irritations; 
of  making  things  temporal  the  way  and  path  to 
things  eternal,  and  things  seen  the  glasses  and 
windows  through  which  they  obtain  a  vision  of 
things  unseen  ;  to  carry  tiiem  out  and  forth  from  a 
life  of  sense  to  a  life  of  faith  ;  to  win  them  from  the 
love  of  the  world  to  the  love  of  Christ ; — surely  this 
is  the  vocation  of  the  Preacher,  and  this  may  not 
inaptly  be  described  as  the  instiitct  for  sonls ;  an 
instinct  perhaps  not  very  prevalent  just  now,  perhaps 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS. 


only  faintly  realised  by  the  writer,  or  the  reader,  but 
an  instinct  which  has  wrought  in  some  men,  and  in 
some  ages,  Hke  a  passion,  which  was  the  passion  of 
Jesus,  the  passion  of  Paul,  and  which  has  been  the 
passion  of  many  of  the  more  wonderful  of  the  humbly 
obscure  men,  who  lived,  and  died,  and  made  no  sign 
which  the  great  world  regarded  ;  but  who,  never- 
theless, felt  that  wonderful  instinct,  the  instinct  for 
souls. 

Would  that  we  had  some  Vasari,  or  Lanzi,  some 
Sterling,  or  Jameson,  to  tell  the  tale  of  the  pulpit, 
as  those  delightful  writers  have  told  the  tale  of  the 
art  of  painting,  and  its  triumphs  and  glories.  Surely, 
it  is  worthy  ! — surely,  the  story  of  the  vocation  of 
the  preacher,  which  is  also  that  of  the  lamp,  pitcher, 
and  trumpet,  is  equal  in  interest  and  in  value  to  that 
of  the  crayon,  the  palette,  or  the  pencil  !  How 
can  the  story  of  painting  be  expected  to  compare 
with  the  story  of  preaching  ?— the  story  of  the  way 
in  which  souls  in  the  new  creation  were  quickened 
and  kept  alive  ?  Looking  among  the  marvels  of  the 
microscope,  bending  the  eye  through  the  lens,  the 
reader  has,  perhaps,  watched  the  crystallisation  of 
some  acid.  A  marvellous  sight ! — gorgeous  spears, 
and  prismatic  pillars  of  crystal  shooting  over  the 
disc  !  A  moment  since  it  was  all  opaque,  and  now 
it  is  all  aglow,  aflame  with  lightnings  ;  a  field  with 
arms  flashing  in  the  sun  ;  a  theatre  resplendent  with 
diamonds  :  but  the  birth  of  souls — the  awakening 
of  souls  ! — new  affections  shooting  forth,  new 
developments, — consciousness,  holiness,  and  power; 
the  minister  has  believed  that  he  beheld  all  this! 
The   artist   believes   in    beauty,  ,  in    the    ideal  ;   the 


4  THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

preacher  in  holiness,  in  life.  Therefore,  what  stories 
of  martyrdoms !  what  enthusiasm  !  sometimes,  it 
may  be,  what  fanaticism  !  Some  artists  have  been 
fanatics  too — Blake,  Haydon,  Ribera  ;  but  they 
neither  interfere  with  our  admiration  of  the  art  nor 
our  appreciation  of  the  men. 

In  chapters  in  the  Romance  of  the  Pulpit  must  be 
mentioned  Dr.  Abel  Stevens's  "  History  of  Method- 
ism," *  and  Dr.  Sprague's  "  Annals  of  the  American 
Methodist  Pulpit."  f  Here  is  a  succession  of  tales  of 
extraordinary  power  and  wonder ;  here  are  the 
stories  of  heroes,  stories  of  marvellous  adventure, 
and  triumph,  and  spiritual  conquest.  It  is  a  pleasant 
conviction  with  us,  that  no  human  chapter  is  more 
full  of  wonder  and  delight  than  the  history  of  the 
pulpit  in  all  ages.  It  has  always  been  wonderful 
where  it  has  been  real,  from  that  day  when  Peter's 
sermons  pierced  the  hearts  of  his  hearers,  down 
through  the  times  of  the  Dark  and  the  Middle  Ages, 
in  every  country,  where  it  has  tried  and  tested  its 
power — in  France,  in  Geneva,  in  Scotland,  England, 
Wales,  and  America.  Dr.  Stevens  tells  one  part  of 
the  story,  and  tells  it  well — recites  the  rise  and 
progress  of  Methodism,  with  its  mighty  array  of 
marvellous  men.  Heroism  and  adventure  meet  us 
everywhere,    as    in    those    days    when    stalwart    old 

*  "The  History  of  the  Religious  Movement  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  called  Methodism."  By  Abel  Stevens,  LL.D.,  New  York. 
A  most  entertaining  repertory  of  pulpit  anecdote  of  the  period  to  which 
it  refers  ;  an  eloquent  story,  told  by  a  sympathetic  and  hearty  Methodist, 
only  too  little  disposed  to  see  the  presence  of  the  Divine  life  in  others 
than  that  Church  whose  history  he  recites. 

t  "Annals  of  the  American  Methodist  Pulpit."  By  William  B. 
Sprague,  New  York.  This  bulky  work  is  overflowingly  full  of  the 
delightful  garrulousness  of  many  men. 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS. 


woodland  shepherds  carried  the  jfirst  preachers  on 
their  backs  through  the  snowdrifts,  which  choked 
the  old  English  roads  in  the  winter  ;  or  the  days 
when  a  preacher  was  seen  with  a  spade  strapped 
on  his  saddle  behind,  taking  his  departure  from 
Macclesfield  for  the  bleak  portion  of  his  circuit — the 
spade  being  deemed  needful  to  cut  a  way  through 
the  snow.  "  I  am  but  a  brown-bread  preacher," 
said  one  of  them,  "  I  have  nothing  of  politeness  in 
my  language  or  address  ;  but  I  seek  to  help  all  to 
Heaven  in  the  best  way  I  can.  I  have  been  in 
dangers  by  snowdrifts  and  land  floods,  by  falls  from 
my  horse,  by  persecution,  sickness,  cold,  pain,  weak- 
ness, and  weariness  ;  trials  of  heart,  and  understand- 
ing, and  judgment,  and  various  reasonings  with 
friends  and  foes,  men  and  devils,  and  most  with 
myself."  He  goes  on  to  say  how  "  through  all  he 
has  been  kept,"  and  modestly  ventures  to  believe  he 
has  not  been  useless,  while  assuredly  he  has  been 
happy.  Such  were  the  men  whose  stories  the  goodly 
volumes  of  Sprague  and  Stevens  tell.  They  remind  us 
of  Gideon  dividing  his  three  hundred  men  into  three 
companies,  putting  a  trumpet  into  every  man's  hand, 
a  pitcher  into  the  other  hand,  and  a  lamp  in  the 
pitcher.  Truly,  a  strange  and  wonderful  sight  to  see 
an  army  of  thousands  flying,  cutting  each  other  in 
pieces,  while  the  Israelites  only  stood  by  with  the 
sounding  trumpet,  and  the  gleaming  lamp !  The 
story  of  the  great  Methodist  movement  is  very 
much  like  this  miraculous,  historic,  and  dramatic 
scene. 

But  on   all    hands    we    hear    that    the    pulpit   is 
worthless  now  ;  there  are  not  wanting  proposals  to 


6  THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

abolish  it.  We  receive  lectures  in  homiletics  from 
those  remarkable  preachers,  TJie  Saturday  Review, 
The  Times,  and  The  Daily  Telegraph.  "  Why," 
says  one  in  a  letter,  we  believe  to  The  Times,  or  to 
one  of  the  High  Church  organs,  "  Why  this  preach- 
ing ?  why  does  this  man  talk  to  us  ?  who  is  he,  that 
he  should  talk  ?  why  not  be  content  to  worship 
only,  when  we  go  to  church  ?  Besides,  ministers 
are  simply  nuisances  ; "  and  it  must  be  said,  so  far, 
in  apology  for  this,  that  if  the  pulpit  cannot  prove 
itself,  it  had  better  go  down.  But  most  of  the  sharp, 
shrill  querulousnesses  against  the  pulpit  have  come 
from  Church  organs  ;  and,  certainly,  of  nearly  the 
twenty  thousand  clergymen  in  the  English  Church, 
few  enough  give  full  proof  of  their  ministry.  Do 
not  most  of  these  fastidious  critics  demand,  as  the 
great  essentials  for  pulpit  eminence,  that  the  ear 
should  be  tickled,  and  the  soul  put  to  sleep  ?  We 
have  sometimes  thought  of  proposing  the  other 
thing  : — "  Instead  of,  or,  as  well  as,  putting  down 
the  pulpit,  why  not  put  an  end  to  sculpture, 
or  to  painting  ?  Cutting  out  bits  of  things 
in  marble,  smearing  colours  over  canvas !  Why 
not  put  down  all  poetry  .''  Are  not  poets  pro- 
verbially nuisances,  with  their  skreeds  of  bathos  ? 
Let  us  put  down  all  art  ;  why  not  .-•  for,  compared 
with  the  pulpit,  what  pictures  or  sculptures  excite 
so  much,  what  music,  or  poetry  awakens  more 
emotion  ? " 

What  is  this  sublime,  impelling  instinct  for  souls 
— for  the  salvation  of  souls — which  these  preachers 
have  known  i* — this  Divine  and  hallowed  fanaticism 
of  love  for  souls  and  for  God  i* — What  but  the  reali- 


THE  INiiTINCJ  FOR  SOt/LS. 


sation  of  those  fervid   words   written  by  that  saintly 
woman,  the  Countess  of  Huntingdon  ? — 

"  My  whole  heart  has  not  a  single  grain  this  moment  of 
thirst  after  approbation.  I  feel  alone  with  God.  He  fills 
the  whole  void.  I  see  all  mortals  under  my  feet.  I  have 
not  one  wish,  one  will,  one  desire,  but  in  Him ;  He 
hath  set  my  feet  in  a  large  room.  All  but  God's  children 
seem  but  so  many  machines  appointed  for  uses  I  have 
nothing  to  do  with.  I  have  wondered  and  stood  amazed 
that  God  should  make  a  conquest  of  all  within  me  by  love. 
I  am  brought  to  less  than  nothing — b'jken  in  pieces  like  a 
potter's  vessel.  I  long  to  leap  into  the  flames  to  get  rid  of 
my  sinful  flesh,  and  that  every  atom  of  these  ashes  might  be 
separate,  and  that  neither  time,  place,  nor  person  should 
stay  God's  Spirit." 

And  this  sublime  affection  led  her  to  forget  and 
almost  renounce  her  rank,  and  leave  her  fortune  of 
;^  1 00,000  upon  the  altar  of  God  her  Saviour.  The 
same  Divine  passion  impelled  that  very  different 
character,  but  equally  eminently  holy  person,  John 
Nelson,  through  his  adventurous  and  holy  career  ; 
when  in  country  cages,  and  through  howling  crowds, 
and  guarded  through  streets  by  armed  troops,  and 
multitudes  huzzaing  round  him,  as  if  he  had  been 
one  who  had  laid  waste  the  nation,  he  says  : — "  The 
Lord  made  my  brow  like  brass,  so  that  I  could  look 
upon  them  all  as  grasshoppers,  and  pass  through 
the  city  as  if  there  had  been  none  in  it  but  God 
and  me."  Insulted,  and  scoffed,  and  persecuted — a 
giant  in  strength,  a  gentleman  in  nature  and  cha- 
racter, but  a  child  of  God,  he  says  : — "  I  was  able 
to  tie  the  head  and  the  heels  of  the  wicked,  ignorant 


8  THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

man,  who  could  thus  torment  me,  together.  I  found 
an  old  man's  bone  in  me  ;  but  the  Lord  lifted  up  a 
standard  when  anger  was  coming  in  like  a  flood, 
lest  I  should  have  wrung  his  neck  to  the  ground, 
and  set  my  foot  upon  him."  Such  stories  as  the 
history  of  the  pulpit  has  to  tell  are  surely  not  un- 
interesting to  any  who  love  to  mark  the  conquests 
of  holy  power  and  holy  speech. 

The  vocation  of  the  Preacher  we  have  said — that 
is,  the  instinct  for  souls.  And  shall  we  here,  in 
these  earliest  pages,  remark  that  a  great  deal  of 
nonsense  has  been  written  and  spoken  lately  about 
the  theatre  as  in  contrast  to  the  temple,  and  the 
play-actor  as  in  comparison  with  the  preacher  ?  We 
are  not  about  to  enter  into  any  argument  as  to  the 
Christian  lawfulness,  or  unlawfulness,  of  the  stage  ; 
good,  great,  and  very  venerable  men  have  taken 
very  opposite  views  upon  that  matter;  but  when  we 
see  our  streets  placarded,  as  London  has  been 
recently  placarded,  with  bills  claiming  for  the  stage 
superiority  in  moral  influence  over  the  pulpit,  when, 
on  so  many  hands,  we  find  it  asserted  that  the  stage 
has  become  the  most  eminent  moral  teacher  of  our 
times, —  we  may,  at  any  rate  in  such  a  chapter  as 
this,  point  out  the  utter  difference  of  the  vocation  of 
the  two.  Without  depreciating  discourteously  or  dis- 
respectfully the  actor,  it  must  be  maintained  that 
the  instinct  for  pleasure  is  widely  different  from  the 
instinct  for  souls  ;  the  actor's  art  may  receive  here 
no  reprehension,  but  the  actor  and  the  preacher 
meet  men  in  two  quite  different  moods  and  moments 
of  their  lives  ;  and  the  pertinency  of  such  obser- 
vations as  we  are  makingr  arises  from  the  fact  that 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS. 


the  theatre  has  taken  a  remarkable  start  in  the 
social   life  of  these  days. 

The  man  of  the  pulpit  and  th*^  man  of  the  stage 
are  now  the  two  most  prominent  and  conspicuous 
members  of  society  ;  they  address  themselves,  if  not 
to  the  most  important,  certainly  to  the  largest,  very 
often  to  the  most  imposing  audiences. 

From  those  remote  and  ancient  ages  when,  in 
the  polite  and  polished  civilisations  of  the  past,  the 
theatre  was  a  kind  of  temple,  and  the  actor  almost 
revered  as  a  priest, — so  copiously  illustrated  in  the 
wise  words  in  the  laws  of  Plato, — we  have  seen  the 
time  when  the  theatre  was  regarded  as  forbidden 
ground,  and  the  actor  almost  banished  from  serious 
society  ;  but  we  have  lived  to  see,  in  these  times, 
an  alteration  of  those  manners  ;  without  immediately 
affirming  that  the  pulpit  and  the  preacher,  or  parson, 
have  gone  down,  or  diminished  in  social  influence, 
the  theatre  and  the  actor  are  certainly  in  the  ascen- 
dant. Theatres  are  everywhere,  in  England  or  in 
the  States,  crowded  ;  this  is  true,  but  we  need  not 
misunderstand  nor  mistake  the  cause  ;  the  services 
of  the  theatre  and  those  of  the  temple  are  essentially 
different,  as  are  the  supposed  functions  of  the  actor 
and  the  preacher  ;  and  yet  the  success  of  the  actor, 
and  popularity  of  the  theatre,  may  convey  to  the 
pulpit,  if  it  will  only  listen  to  them,  some  useful 
lessons.  Grave  and  serious  society  has,  usually, 
been  ungrateful  to  the  actor  ;  he  has  often  cheated 
life  of  its  care,  and,  amidst  the  stress  and  toil  ot 
existence,  he  has  charmed  away  the  burden  of  the 
weary  hour  ;  he  has  taken  captive  the  man,  the 
victim   of  too    anxious   thought,  and   refreshed  and 


io        THE    VOCATION  OF  THk  PREACHER. 

recreated  him  for  to-morrow's  labours  ;  it  is  really 
necessary,  in  such  a  state  of  society  as  that  we  have 
reached,  to  secrete  a  certain  amount  of  healthful 
and  recreative  excitement  and  amusement  ;  and  the 
actor,  like  the  preacher,  usually  but  poorly  paid,  is 
thus  one  of  the  benefactors  of  society.  He  refreshes, 
for  the  actor  does  not  argue  ;  the  drama  does  not 
deal  in  the  meshes  of  abstract  thought,  or  in  pro- 
cessions of  logical  sequences  ;  the  actor  appeals 
to  the  great  sympathies,  he  makes  even  bad  men 
better  for  a  brief  moinent  or  two,  while  they  are 
carried  along  on  the  passion  of  the  moment,  and 
compelled  to  applaud  some  heroic  virtue  altogether 
alien  from  their  daily  nature,  or  to  join  in  triumph  over 
some  disappointed,  foiled,  or  defeated  vice  or  villainy; 
and  many  of  our  great  comedies  are  great  social 
sermons;  it  is  a  great  thing  to  write  a  great  comedy, 
it  is  not  less  than  a  great  thing  to  set  it  forth  well, 
and  to  act  it  well.  Thus  it  has  happened  that  the 
pulpit  has  lost  where  the  stage  has  gained.  The 
pulpit  has  not  kept  sufficiently  near  to  the  great 
sympathies  ;  Christianity  was  defined  by  an  old 
Church  Father  as  "  the  creed  which  has  been  held 
always,  everywhere,  by  all."  Assuredly,  it  is  a  great 
thing  to  move  in  those  large  chambers  of  emotion 
which  are  the  heritage  of  all  the  heirs  of  humanity  ; 
hence  great  music  is  so  catholic  and  comprehensive  ; 
emotions  transcend  definitions,  which  are  very  ne- 
cessary sometimes,  when  the  soul  needs  a  mooring, 
and  an  anchorage,  but  from  which  it  is  sometimes 
necessary  to  fly  as  from  a  cage  into  a  firmament. 

In  our  day  the  pulpit  has  sought,  in  some  famous 
instances,  to  emulate  the  stage  ;  but,  usually,  it  has 


The  instinct  for  souls.  n 

not  emulated  the  best  part  of  it,  but  the  more  coarse, 
not  the  more  elevated  and  pathetic  utterances ; 
some  great,  or  say  rather,  notorious  preachers  have 
succeeded  in  adopting  the  actor's  art,  but  usually 
that  very  abuse  of  it  against  which  Shakespeare 
utters  his  wise  warnings  in  Hamlet,  in  words  equally 
instructive  to  preachers  and  to  actors.  The  success 
of  the  man,  the  speaker  on  the  stage,  ought  to  be 
very  instructive  to  the  preacher. 

The  actor  leaves  little  to  the  moment  ;  he  does 
not  trust  to  the  happy  inspiration  of  the  occasion  ; 
the  eloquence  or  the  wit  he  carries  on  the  stage 
with  him  ;  and  it  is  not  thought  disgraceful  that 
he  should  do  so  ;  it  would  seem  foolish,  and  would,  in 
no  sense,  conduce  to  his  fortune,  or  his  fame,  to  trust 
to  the  felicities  of  a  flippant  or  impromptu  style  ;  the 
wise  player  not  only  studies  his  words  and  his  part, 
but  the  laws  of  his  art  also  ;  and  so  it  comes  about 
that  he  achieves  a  success  not  the  less  noticeable  ; 
although,  no  doubt,  attention  to  the  parson  is 
regarded,  on  the  whole,  as  a  duty,  even  though 
he  be  very  dull,  while  attention  to  the  actor  is 
regarded  as  a  pleasure.  Of  course,  many  of  our 
readers  will  inquire  if  we  intend  by  such  remarks 
as  these  to  recommend  the  pulpit  to  outbid  the 
theatre.  Again  we  repeat,  the  functions  and  voca- 
tion of  the  two  are  different  ;  the  theatre  is  the  very 
temple  of  the  senses  ;  to  every  sense  is  appeal  made 
for  sympathy  ;  the  glow  of  a  w^arm  and  delicious 
light,  the  intoxication  of  every  order  of  delirious  or 
subduing  music,  the  deceptive  charm  of  painting  and 
of  scenery,  everything  in  the  house  arranged  so  that 
the  auditor  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  his  audience. 


12        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

On  the  contrary,  the  church  is  most  likely  constructed 
on  principle,  so  that  "  he  that  hath  ears  to  hear " 
shall  not  hear  ;  the  acoustic  properties  of  the  temple 
are  usually  just  as  bad  as  those  of  the  theatre  are 
excellent  ;  but  all  these  are  only  aids  and  accessories 
to  help  the  actor  ;  and  then,  when  the  moment  comes, 
how  wonderful  that  ease  with  which  the  emotions  of 
the  vast  concourse  of  people  are  held  as  the  mighty 
locks  of  a  great  canal,  and  turned  as  rivers  of  water 
beneath  the  spell  of  some  great  speech,  and  fitting 
action. 

Mighty  actors  are  apparitions  as  rare  as  great 
preachers, — Ganicks,  Keans,  Talmas,  Salvinis,  Ris- 
toris,  and  Siddonses;  but  it  is  probable,  remember- 
ing what  the  theatre  has  become  in  our  day,  how 
marvellously  it  is  cleansed  from  its  ancient  impuri- 
ties ,  how,  beyond  most  of  the  artist  faculties  appre- 
hensible by  the  multitude,  it  is  calculated  to  elevate, 
to  soften,  to  refine,  to  teach,  and  to  inspire;  it  is 
probable  that  the  best  days  of  the  stage  are  yet 
to  come  ;  and  when,  as  in  the  days  of  Plato,  as 
he  discourses,  and  shows,  the  great  actor  shall  be 
the   mighty   preacher  too. 

But,  according  to  some,  the  great  end  of  all 
preaching  and  acting  should  be  to  make  the  audi- 
tors, beneath  either  exercise,  comfortable.  Young 
preachers,  especially,  should  look  to  it,  and  cultivate 
the  happy  art  which,  in  so  eminent  a  degree,  makes 
what  is  called  a  comfortable  preacher  ;  our  friend 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Nobissimus  Peachblossom,  we  do  not 
doubt,  owes  his  great  success  as  a  divine  very  largely 
to  his  adroit  cultivation  of  the  art  of  making  his 
hearers  comfortable  ;  indeed,  he  has  often  said  to  us 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS.  13 

**  The  world  is  an  uncomfortable  place,  people  do 
not  go  to  church  to  be  made  uncomfortable  ;  why 
should  I  try  to  preach  so  that  people  shall  fancy 
they  hear  the  wind  whistling  through  a  keyhole  ? 
Why  should  I  plague  them  with  thoughts  until 
they  become  so  uncomfortable  in  their  pews  that  they 
almost  fancy  they  have  an  attack  of  Asiatic  cholera? 
So  I  cultivate  a  melodious  style,  and  I  use  words 
upon  the  principle  of  charming  the  people,  not 
frightening  them.  I  never  speak  too  plainly.  I 
know  they  call  me  a  delightful  man,  a  charming 
preacher.  What  is  more  to  the  point,  my  church 
is  always  crowded,  and  I  have  an  average  of  two 
hundred  persons  always  waiting  to  obtain  sittings. 
This  is  a  much  more  satisfactory  state  of  things  to 
the  interests  of  Divine  truth  and  public  worship, 
than  the  condition  of  the  church  of  my  good 
neighbour.  Raven  Rightwell.  His  place  is  never 
one-third  full.  I  suppose  his  income  is  really 
distressing  ;  and  why  .''  Because  he  sets  truth  in 
such  sharp  lines,  says  such  disagreeable  things, 
talks  about  sin  and  sorrow.  Dear  me,  people  know 
all  about  that  !  Then  the  very  lines  of  his  face  ! 
When  I  go  up  into  the  pulpit,  I  always  smile  upon 
the  people  ;  they  like  to  see  it.  One  of  them 
called  me  a  white-necked  dove  the  other  day  ;  it 
will  be  a  long  while  before  stern-faced  Rightwell 
has  such  a  compliment.  And  yet — would  you 
believe  it } — I  heard  of  some  one,  not  long  since, 
who  described  me  as  a  peach,  all  lusciousness 
without,  and  a  hard  uncrackable  stone  within  ;  and 
they  spoke  of  Raven  Rightwell  as  a  rugged  cocoa- 
nut  full   of   the  milk  of  human  kindness.     People 


14        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

are  so  unreasonable,  and  it  is  such  a  wickedly  mis- 
judging world  !  "  Which  remarks  of  my  good 
friend,  the  doctor,  lead  me  to  this  further  observa- 
tion, how  great  the  necessity  for  preachers,  not 
less  than  actors,  to  mind  zvhat  they  say,  and  how 
they  say  it. 

We  trust  that  none  of  our  readers  will  misappre- 
hend this  juxtaposition  in  our  pages  of  the  preacher 
and  the  actor  ;  it  may  be  feared  that  the  increasing 
popularity  of  the  latter  arises  from  the  fact  that  the 
voice  of  religion  sounds  fainter  and  fainter  in  our 
day,  fainter  and  fainter  year  by  year ;  but  it 
certainly  is  not  the  theatre,  nor  the  actor,  who  will 
renew  its  clear  and  authoritative  tone.  Let  it  be 
said,  if  people  will  have  it  so,  that  the  theatre  is 
all  very  well  in  its  way  ;  but  even  morality  must 
find  a  deeper  foundation  than  the  actor  will 
present :  and,  most  of  all,  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  his  vocation  does  not  deal  with  broken  hearts, 
fractured  faiths,  and  disappointed  lives  ;  the  plain- 
ness of  the  temple,  even  the  humble  dissenting 
conventicle  contrasts  well  from  this  point  of  view 
with   the  gorgeous  splendours  of  the   theatre. 

We  actually  heard  a  clergyman,  and  a  canon  of 
one  of  our  most  illustrious  English  cathedrals,  the 
other  day  delivering  a  discourse,  which  we  need  not 
say  brought  down  the  house  with  shouts  of  applause, 
in  which,  if  he  did  not  elevate  the  stage  above  the 
pulpit,  he  at  any  rate  showed  that  it  was  quite  its 
equal,  and  that  there  were  no  objections  which  could 
be  urged  against  the  stage  which  might  not  be 
urged  with  equal  force  against  the  pulpit.  We 
had  just  been  reading  Lady  Bloomfield's  Reminis- 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  15 

cences,  and  thought  of  an  anecdote  of  Story,  the 
great  American  sculptor.  He  commenced  life  as 
a  lawyer,  and  was  the  son  of  an  eminent  judge. 
When  his  father  died,  he  was  in  good  practice.  He 
had  a  passion  for  art,  he  threw  up  his  practice, 
went  to  Rome,  and  became  distinguished.  One 
day  an  American  called  upon  him,  and,  after 
sitting  for  some  time  in  his  studio,  looking  at 
him  without  speaking,  at  last  he  said,  "  Story,  I 
wish  to  ask  you  a  question.  In  heaven's  name, 
tell  me  what  induced  you  to  give  up  the  glorious 
profession  of  the  bar,  and  come  to  Rome  to  pinch 
up  mud  }  "  That  was  the  impression  produced  on 
our  mind  by  the  nevertheless  excellent  clerical 
canon — the  glorious  profession  of  the  mimic  art 
contrasted  with  the  mean  and  poor  profession  of 
the  parson,  if  we  are  to  be  recommended  to  adopt 
means  by  which  the  pulpit  shall  outbid  the  stage. 
The  functions  of  the  two  are  just  entirely  different  ; 
we  have  said  the  theatre  is  the  very  temple  of  the 
senses,  and  every  sense  is  called  upon  to  yield  its 
sympathy. 

Shocked  at  the  idea  of  sitting  at  the  feet  of  play- 
actors as  professors  and  instructors  in  the  art  of 
preaching !  and  to  find  a  congregation  of  melting 
hearts,  previously  borrowed  from  the  circulating 
library,  in  tears !  No  !  Lift  up  your  hand  and 
take  down  that  fifth  volume  of  Carlyle's  Essays, 
and  you  may  read  a  pretty  strong  and  grotesque 
enunciation.  What  does  he  say  i* — "  Behind  the 
glitter  "  (of  the  stage)  "  stalks  the  shadow  of  eternal 
death  ;  through  it,  too,  I  look  not  up  into  the 
Divine   eye,  as  Richter  has  it,  but   down    into    the 


1 6        2 HE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

bottomless  eye-socket  ;  not  up  towards  God,  Heaven, 
and  the  Throne  of  Truth,  but  too  truly  down 
towards  falsity,  vacuity,  and  the  dwelling-place  of 
everlasting  despair."  That  is  a  tolerably  stiff  and 
strong  enunciation. 

Some  readers  here  may  say,  "  Grim  old  boy  ! 
Puritanical  old  patriarch !  You  righteous  folks  were 
once  perpetually  affecting  horror  at  Carlyle,  and  now 
that  the  world  has  pretty  generally  given  him  up, 
you  are  just  as  unreasonably  bringing  his  fierce, 
rhadamanthine  eloquence  forward  to  trounce  all 
pleasant  ideas." 

Well,  if  he  be  too  stern  a  prophet,  take  up 
another  testimony  from  the  wise  and  gentle  spirit 
of  Arthur  Helps.  Readers  will  remember,  in  the 
second  series  of  the  "  Friends  in  Council,"  Ellesmere's 
description  of  his  grandmother  at  the  opera.  The 
old  lady  sat  patiently  through  the  opera  until  the 
ballet  ;  she  looked  at  it  for  a  few  minutes,  then 
plucked  her  daughter,  who  was  with  her,  by  the 
arm,  and  passionately  exclaimed,  "  Anne,  how  can 
you  look  at  these  goings-on  ?  I  am  ashamed  of 
you."  Anne,  who,  it  seems,  was  a  young  bride, 
was  terrified,  and  tried  to  pacify  the  old  lady  ; 
moreover,  they  could  not  get  away,  for  their 
carriage  was  not  ordered  until  the  end  of  the 
performance.  So  the  old  lady,  after  looking  a 
moment  or  two  longer  at  the  dancing  houris,  de- 
liberately turned  her  back  on  the  audience,  and, 
withdrawing  some  paces,  really  sat  down  with  her 
back  to  the  stage  in  such  an  attitude  that,  as  she 
said,  "  she  could  not  see  that  wicked  performance !  " 

Heie  again  some  readers  may  say,  '*  Prudish  old 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS.  17 

woman  !  "  to  which  we  reply,  "  Beautiful  old  lady  ! 
type  of  the  old  school !  "  respecting  herself  too 
much  to  look  with  pleasure  upon  what  seemed 
to  her  to  be  absence  of  self-respect  in  the  members 
of  her  own  sex  ;  for  say  what  some  may  in  defence 
of  the  theatre  and  the  actor,  the  ballet  is  an  abomi- 
nation, a  disgrace,  and  an  insult  to  our  civilisa- 
tion. 

Again,  if  it  be  necessary  to  apologise  for  the  in- 
terpolation of  these  remarks  upon  the  theatre  in  this 
chapter  on  the  vocation  of  the  preacher,  we  may 
say,  they  are  not  uncalled  for,  in  the  memory  of 
the  imperial  triumphs  of  the  stage  in  our  day  con- 
trasted with  the  comparative  decadence  of  the 
pulpit  ;  and  we  repeat  incisively,  again,  their 
functions  and  vocations  are  different,  and  for  ever, 
and  for  ever,  the  pulpit  should  remain  the  pulpit, 
and  the  stage  the  stage. 

We  have  always  said  that  the  history  of  the 
Christian  Church  is  the  history  of  the  achievements 
of  the  pulpit.  If  our  readers  are  desirous  of  going 
through  a  popular  compendium  of  illustrations  of 
the  character  of  the  pulpit  in  the  early  ages,  we 
may  refer  them  to  Mr.  Horace  Moule's  "Inquiry  into 
the  History  of  Christian  Oratory,  during  the  First 
Five  Centuries"  As  Church  history  enters  into  our 
studies,  we  shall  not  be  able  to  review  the  history 
of  the  Church  without  noticing  the  immense  power 
of  speech.  As  in  Scripture  the  Ear  stood  so 
distinctly  for  the  whole  man — "  Mine  ears  hast 
Thou  opened,"  "  He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him 
hear  " — of  course  it  was  to  this  very  work  that  the 
first  Church  directed  itself.      It  was  a  message,  not 

2 


i8         THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

to  be  delivered  in  the  porch,  the  academy,  the 
garden,  the  grove,  or  even  the  synagogue  or  the 
Sanhedrim  ;  but,  taking  captive  the  people  by  the 
omnipotence  of  irrepressible  convictions,  it  was  to 
the  multitude,  to  the  poor.  The  first  method  was 
eminently  a  method  with  the  conscience.  The 
historian  tells  us  when  the  learning  of  the  mere 
dialectician  appeared,  or  the  mere  cunning  of  the 
rhetorician  ;  that  those  ages,  even  the  earliest  ages, 
were  remarkable  for  their  spiritual  weakness,  not  for 
their  spiritual  strength.  In  the  very  earliest  Christian 
ages  oratory  was  kept  back,  and  was  but  a  secondary 
agency  to  those  without  ;  and  the  success  of  Chris- 
tianity has  been  attributed  to  the  three  extraordinary 
manifestations  of  its  power:  (i)  the  singularity  of 
conduct  on  the  part  of  believers  ;  (2)  their  blameless 
and  virtuous  lives  ;  and  (3)  their  heroic  constancy 
and  bold  confession  under  the  pains  of  persecution. 
Neander  says,  "  As  to  the  relation  of  the  sermon 
to  the  whole  office  of  worship,  this  is  a  point  on 
which  we  must  write  with  the  most  opposite  errors 
of  judgment."  If,  however,  when  churches  rose, 
and  some  of  them  very  large,  in  the  Eastern  and 
Western  divisions,  we  had  stepped  in,  we  should 
perhaps  have  found  many  points  of  resemblance 
to  our  own,  and  some  startling  dissimilarities  ; — 
the  ambo,  or  desk,  often  in  the  centre,  tlie  preache) 
sitting — most  natural,  and  effective,  and  happy  of 
postures  for  preaching  ;  preaching  was  usually  ex- 
temporaneous, with  very  rare  exceptions ;  under- 
standing, by  that  general  term,  all  kinds  of  delivery, 
short  of  reading  from  a  complete  manuscript,  or 
very  full  notes  ;  and   it  was  thought  very  desirable 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS.  19 

that  a  preacher  should  be  able  to  discourse  to 
the  congregation  on  a  part  of  Scripture  from  the 
inspiration  of  the  moment.  In  the  Church  were 
those  nuisances  of  our  time,  short-hand  writers, 
too.  Usually,  in  length,  the  sermons  were  far 
shorter  than  ours.  The  Greek  Fathers  were  always 
the  longer  ;  the  Latins  did  not  usually  occupy  more 
than  half  an  hour,  often  not  more  than  ten  minutes. 
Very  often  the  preacher  was  interrupted  by  bursts 
of  applause,  and  the  holy  seriousness  of  Chrysostom 
was  often  shocked  by  this  supererogatory  appro- 
bation ;  while  Gregory  Nazianzen  seems  to  have 
been,  on  the  other  hand,  pleased  by  this  contribution 
to  vanity. 

Our  readers  must  remember  how  broken  these 
hints  are  which  we  are  attempting  to  give  of  those 
times.  The  pulpit —  the  ambo — was  power ;  doubtless 
it  had  its  faults,  but  they  do  not  seem  to  have  been 
of  the  order  we  should  most  condemn.  Critics 
find  in  Clemens  declamation  and  diffuseness  ;  but 
even  in  the  page,  as  we  read  it,  there  is  a  warmth 
of  piety  and  depth  of  fervour  ;  he  belongs  to  the 
philosophical  period  of  that  age,  and  thus  he 
speaks  : — 

"  Though  the  artisan  can  make  an  idol,  he  has  never 
made  a  breathing  image,  or  formed  soft  flesh  oiit  of  earth. 
Who  liquified  the  mairow  ?  Who  hardened  the  bones  ? 
Who  extended  the  nerves?  Who  inflated  the  veins?  Who 
infused  the  blood  into  them  ?  Who  stretched  the  skin 
around  them?  Who  made  the  eye  to  see?  Who  breathed 
the  soul  into  the  body  ?  Who  freely  gave  righteousness  ? 
Who  has  promised  immortality  ?  The  Creator  of  all  things 
alone,  the  Supreme  Artisan,  made  man  a  living  image ;  but 


20        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

your  Olympian  Jove,  the  image  of  an  image  far  differing 
from  the  truth,  is  the  dumb  work  of  Attic  hands.  The 
image  of  God  is  His  Word  :  the  legitimate  Son  of  Intelli- 
gence ;  the  Divine  V/ord ;  the  original  Light  of  light ;  and 
the  image  of  the  Word  is  the  true  man,  the  mind  which 
is  in  man,  who,  on  this  account,  is  said  to  be  in  the  image 
and  likeness  of  God,  being  assimilated  to  the  Divine  Word, 
or  Reason,  by  the  understanding  in  his  heart,  and,  there- 
fore, rational.  But  the  earthly  image  of  the  visible  man, 
the  man  sprung  from  the  earth,  the  resemblance  of  man, 
appears,  as  it  were,  a  momentary  impression,  eK/xayetW,  far 
removed  from  the  truth."  * 

To  the  same  period  belong  Origen  and  Ter- 
tuUian.  Their  sins  as  preachers  were  on  the  side 
of  mysticism  ;  and,  perhaps,  there  were  moments 
when  they  seem  to  have  permitted  themselves  to 
be  too  much  perverted  and  turned  aside  by  their 
contact  with  the  tropical  exuberances  of  Oriental 
imagination  ;  but  that  which  strikes  us  is  the 
intense  reality  with  which  the  Christian  life  was 
described  by  them.  Comparing  the  Christian  life 
with  the  spectacles  and  the  shows  of  Rome,  Ter- 
tullian,  whose  style  has  been  compared  with  that 
of  our   Edward    Irving,   exclaims  : — 

"  And  then,  if  you  do  but  reflect  that  even  this  life,  too, 
is  to  be  spent  in  delights,  how  can  you  be  so  ungrateful 
as  not  to  be  content  with,  and  not  to  acknowledge,  the 
many  and  the  great  pleasures  that  God  bestows  on  you  ? 
For  what  is  more  dtlightful  than  reconciliation  with  God, 
our  Father  and  Lord  ? — than  the  revelation  of  truth  ? — than 
the  discovery  of  errors  ? — than  the  pardon  of  so  grievous 
offences  past  ?     What  greater  pleasure  than  a  distaste  for 

*  Moule,  p.  "j}^. 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOUIS.  2X 


pleasure  itself? — than  a  contempt  for  the  whole  world? — 
than  true  liberty?— than  a  pure  conscience  ?— than  a  blame- 
less life  ? — than  no  fear  of  death  ? — than  to  tread  under 
foot  the  gods  of  the  Gentiles? — to  cast  out  demons? — to 
perform  cures  ? — to  seek  for  revelations  ?— to  live  unto  God  ? 
These  are  the  pleasures,  these  the  shows  of  Christians,  holy, 
everlasting,  gratuitous.  If  knowledge,  if  literature  delight 
a  man's  mind,  we  have  enough  of  books,  enough  of  verses, 
enough  of  maxims,  enough  also  of  song,  enough  of  music  ; 
no  stage  plots,  but  verities  ;  no  cunningly  wrought  stanzas, 
but  simple  strains.  Wouldest  thou  have  fightings  and 
wrestlings?  Behold  immodesty  cast  down  by  chastity, 
perfidy  slain  by  fidelity,  cruelty  crushed  by  compassion, 
arrogance  eclipsed  by  modesty.  Such  are  our  contests  in 
which  we  gain  the  crown.  Wouldest  thou  have  also  some- 
what of  blood  ?     Thou  hast  Christ's."  * 

The  same  motives  which  impel  the  feet  of  the 
artist  to  Rome,  that  he  may  study  the  ancient 
masters  and  know  the  principles  of  their  art,  will 
lead  us,  as  we  possess  the  opportunity,  to  make 
ourselves  acquainted,  if  not  in  their  original,  then 
in  their  English  dress,  with  the  life  of  Athanasius, 
the  tenderness  of  Basil,  and  the  magnificence  of 
Chrysostom.  The  preaching  of  Athanasius  was 
the  informing,  practical  mind  of  the  first  half  of 
the  fourth  century,  and  of  him  we  think  as  of  a 
severe,  patristic  Calvin.  He  was  the  head  of  the 
long  illustrious  line  of  conservative  theologians. 
We  cannot  commend  his  spirit  so  warmly  as  his 
faith ;  even  Dr.  Newman  has  gathered  together 
some  illustrative  epithets  strewn  along  his  pages — 
the    flowers    of    his    rhetoric — against    the     Arians. 

*  Moule,  p.  84. 


22         THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHEA. 

Those  favourite  epithets  were, — "Devils,"  "  Anti- 
christs," "Maniacs,"  "Jews,"  "  Polytheists,"  "Atheists," 
"Dogs,"  "Wolves,"  "Lions,"  "Hares,"  "Chame- 
leons," "  Hydras,"  "  Eels,"  "  Cuttle-fish,"  "  Gnats," 
"  Beetles,"  "  Leeches."*  Yet  we  ought  to  know 
the  life  of  this  great  preacher,  and  we  should 
remember  the  horrible  inveteracy  of  his  foes.  His 
life  reads  as  one  long  and  most  glowing  romance  ; 
its  incidents  are  most  startling  and  kindling.  The 
pulpit,  occupied  by  him  in  those  exciting  scenes  and 
times,  becomes  not  merely  the  great  breakwater  of 
faith,  but  not  less,  if  we  may  say  so,  its  dramatic 
theatre. 

There  seems  to  have  been  much  of  Calvin  in 
him,  or  much  of  him  in  Calvin  ;  his  style  was 
barren  of  all  splendours  or  tenderness  ;  he  failed 
to  touch  the  heart,  or  disdained  to  attempt  it  ;  but 
there  was  in  him  an  amazing  and  most  vital  love 
to  the  Saviour.  He,  perhaps,  did  not  understand 
so  clearly  as  we  do,  or  as  we  might  wish  we  under- 
stood, the  rights  of  other  individual  souls,  but  he 
did  understand  the  right  of  private  judgment  ;  and 
his  passion  for  the  truth  has  passed  into  a  proverb, 
most  sublime  in  its  expressiveness,  of  the  claims 
of  individual  solitary  judgment  against  the  claims 
of  general  authority — "  Athanasius  contra  mundum  " 
■ — Athanasius  against  the  world. 

Amongst  the  most  illustrious  names  of  the  early 
Christian  Church  stands  forth  Basil  ;  in  him  the 
Orator  of  the  Church  begins,  and  in  all  his  writings 
the  orator  burns.      An   intellectual,  but  still  imagi- 

*  Athanasius. — "  Historical     Treatises,"     vol.    ii.    p.     34. 
Stanley's  "History  of  the  Eastern  Church,"   p.  292. 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS.  2% 


native  Orientalism  pervades  all.  Basil  and  his 
pupil,  Gregory  Nazianzen,  were  fellow-students  of 
the  Emperor  Julian.  Basil  led  a  less  stirring  life 
than  Athanasius,  and  his  sermons  are  characterised 
by  a  devotional  calm.  He  preached  ostensibly  to 
the  poor ;  but  crowds  flocked  to  hear  him.  Ac- 
complished master  of  the  science  of  Athenian 
rhetoric  as  he  was,  he  concealed  his  art  beneath 
a  persuasive  and  popular  style.  He  gathered  round 
him  the  poor  indeed,  the  mechanics  of  Caesarea, 
but  by  his  rare  influence  compelled  the  multitudes 
of  the  celebrated  also  ;  and,  when  he  died,  his 
funeral,  followed  by  the  whole  province,  excited 
envy  for  those  who  were  crushed  to  death  in  the 
crowd. 

Let  us  read  what  he  says  on  psalmody  : — 

"  Psalmody  is  the  calm  of  the  soul,  the  repose  of  the 
spirit,  the  arbiter  of  peace.  It  silences  the  wave,  and 
conciliates  the  whirlwind  of  our  passions,  soothing  the 
impetuous,  tempering  the  unchaste.  It  is  an  engenderer 
of  friendship,  a  healer  of  dissension,  a  reconciler  of  enemies. 
For  who  can  longer  count  him  his  enemy  with  whom  to 
the  throne  of  God  he  hath  raised  the  strain?  Psalmody 
repels  the  demons :  it  lures  the  ministry  of  angels ;  a 
weapon  of  defence  in  nightly  terrors, — a  respite  from  daily 
toil.  To  the  infant  it  is  a  presiding  genius  ;  to  manhood 
a  crown  of  glory  ;  a  balm  of  comfort  to  the  aged ;  a 
congenial  ornament  to  women." 

The  following  passage,  enforcing,  or  rather  illus- 
trating, the  duty  of  praise,  is  elaborate,  but  very 
beautiful  : — 

"What  reward  shall  we  give  unto  the  Lord  for  all  the 
benefits  He  hath  bestowed  ?     From  the  cheerless  gloom  of 


24        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

non-existence  He  waked  us  into  being  ;  He  ennobled  us 
with  understanding  ;  He  taught  us  arts  to  promote  the 
means  of  Hfe  ;  He  commanded  the  prohfic  earth  to  yield 
its  nurture ;  He  bade  the  animals  to  own  us  as  their  lords. 
For  us  the  rains  descend  ;  for  us  the  sun  sheddeth  abroad 
its  creative  beams  ;  the  mountains  rise,  the  valleys  bloom, 
affording  us  grateful  habitation  and  a  sheltering  retreat. 
For  us  the  rivers  flow ;  for  us  the  fountains  murmur  ;  the 
sea  opens  its  bosom  to  admit  our  commerce ;  the  earth 
exhausts  its  stores  ;  each  new  object  presents  a  new  enjoy- 
ment ;  all  nature  pouring  her  treasures  at  our  feet,  through 
the  bounteous  grace  of  Him  who  wills  that  all  be  ours."* 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  Chrysostom  ?  He  is 
said  to  be  the  study  of  a  life-tinae  in  himself.  His 
works  are  voluminous.  Bishop  of  Antioch  in  its 
wealthiest  day,  his  conduct  there  commands  our 
highest  reverence.  He  passed  his  life  amidst  the 
most  virulent  energies  of  persecution.  But  we  must 
refer  our  readers  to  Gibbon  for  the  best,  most  popular 
and  comprehensive  account  of  the  Golden  Mouth, 
and  how  he  was  despatched  secretly  in  a  post-chariot 
from  Antioch,  to  take  the  archbishopric  of  Constan- 
tinople ;  it  being  feared  that  the  people  would  not 
resign  their  favourite  preacher ;  an  ordeal  through 
which  very  few  preachers  since  have  had  to  pass  in 
their  ascent  to  the  episcopal  chair. 

But  immeasurably  the  greatest  of  all  the  preachers 
of  the  early  Church  was  the  Bishop  of  Hippo,  the 
stupendous,  the  enormous  Augustine.  We  believe 
if  we  were  to  commend  to  our  readers  the  preacher  of 
all  others  most  likely  to  help  them  in  the  pulpit,  we 
would  say  Chrysostom  in  his  expositions.     And  his 

*  Moule,  pp.  ii8,  119. 


THE  INSTINC7  FOR   SOULS.  25 

style  was  very  expository — there  is  great  wisdom 
and  clearness  ;  it  was  eminently  practical  too  ;  also, 
it  was  not  wanting  in  a  fine  declamatory  fervour 
(some  would  say  he  possessed  this  too  abundantly), 
which  must  be  possessed  by  the  useful  preacher. 
But  the  mental  struggles  of  the  age  and  of  the 
human  mind  do  not  appear  to  have  affected  him  ; 
there  were  no  remarkable  epochs  in  his  religious 
history,  and  his  nature  had  not  the  roominess  which 
is  shown  in  every  page  of  the  writings  of  Augustine. 
The  life  of  Augustine  made  him  the  teacher  he 
became  ;  we  do  not  here  touch  upon  it  :  the  tender 
story  of  his  mother  Monica, — of  his  life  of  careless- 
ness and  sin, — of  his  studies,  so  vast  and  various,  in 
all  the  arts,  rhetoric,  and  poetry  of  the  ancients, 
and  the  pagans.  He  was  intoxicated  with  sensual 
beauty  ;  in  Carthage,  where  he  fixed  his  home, 
thoughtful  but  sensuous,  rather  than  sensual,  he 
luxuriated  beneath  the  rich  bright  heavens,  by  the 
beautiful  waters  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  amidst  all 
the  variegated  glories  of  art,  in  a  city  then  one  of 
the  chief  seats  of  civilisation.  In  his  sublime  work, 
his  affecting  "  Confessions,"  he  exclaims  :  "  What 
wert  Thou  then  to  me,  and  how  far  from  me  }  Far 
verily  was  I  straying  from  Thee,  carried  from  the  very 
husks  of  the  swine  whom  with  husks  I  fed  ;  I  sought 
for  pleasures,  sublimities,  truths,  and  so  fell  headlong 
into  sorrows,  confusions,  errors."  But  his  mind  was 
of  the  order  which  must  find  a  reason  for  everything. 
And  by-and-by  came  the  highest  reason.  What  a 
story  it  is,  his  struggles  to  become  free,  and  how  he 
became  free  !  Our  position  to  the  mind  of  Augustine 
must  be    relative.       We    commend   Chrysostom    to 


25        2 HE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

all,  but  few  can  be  able  to  plough  with  the  heifers  of 
the  Bishop  of  Hippo.  Yet,  unless  we  enter  with 
him  into  his  wondrous  art,  as  of  logic,  abstraction, 
and  thought,  no  preacher  can  be  more  homely  ;  he 
is  always  more  illustrative  than  declamatory,  and 
the  racy,  spiritualising  Puritans  derived  much  of 
their  flavour,  pith,  and  unction  from  him.  We  must 
think  that  the  pleasant  ingeniousness  of  Matthew 
Henry,  not  only  found  its  ancestor,  but  much  of  its 
inspiration  in  Augustine. 

The  "  instrument  of  ten  strings''  upon  which  the 
Psalmist  would  praise  God,  becomes  in  one  place 
the  Ten  Commandments,  made  delightful  and  easy 
to  keep  by  Divine  grace,  or  the  ten  fingers  which 
perform  the  mission  of  the  will  in  Divine  service. 
On  the  text,  "  Whereof  every  one  beareth  twi7is," 
"  What  twins  V  says  he.  "  The  Law  and  the  Prophets 
— the  two  commandments  whereon  hang  all  in  the 
life  of  every  believer!  *  The  bread,  and  fish,  and  egg' 
the  child  asks  of  his  father  in  the  parable  are 
explained — the  bread  as  soul,  fish  as  faith  which 
lives  amidst  the  billows  of  temptation,  and  the  egg 
as  hope,  a  something,  but  not  the  chicken." 

But  if  we  do  not  admire  these  things,  let  us  not 
smile  at  them,  they  are  only  motes  in  the  sunbeam, 
and  if  we  are  able  to  follow  him,  there  is  no  writer 
in  the  long  procession  of  preachers  who  will  so 
minister  to  the  minister  as  Augustine.  Mr.  Moule 
says  ; — 

"  Of  Augustine,  it  may  most  truly  be  said,  that  he,  if 
any  man  had,  had  experience  of  those  phases  in  the  soul's 
history  when  '  the  tongue  cleaves  even  to  the  roof  of  the 
mouth,  and  when  silence  is  kept,  even  from  good  words.' 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  27 

It  was  not  only  his  being  Prelate  of  the  West,  instead  of  a 
prelate  of  the  East,  that  occasioned  the  wide  difference 
between  himself  and  Basil,  Gregory,  or  even  Chrysostom. 
The  intense  passion  of  his  temperament,  which  imparted 
so  much  energy  to  his  intellectual  operations,  and  which 
is  often  the  cause  of  the  rich  and  vigorous  flow  of  his 
language,  produces  also  that  quiet  rejection  of  rhetorical 
ornament  which  we  find  so  prevalent  throughout  his  un- 
pretending sermons.  The  '  City  of  God  '  has,  as  might  be 
expected,  a  good  store  of  florid  language,  some  specimens 
exhibiting  the  very  highest  style  of  beauty.  But  his  subject 
in  that  case,  not  only  was  suited  to  elaborate  ornament, 
it  sometimes  imperatively  demanded  the  very  grandest 
utterance.  The  general  tone  of  Augustine  was,  however, 
that  of  a  man  who,  while  he  was  too  sensible  to  despise 
the  aids  of  artistic  eloquence,  was  himself,  for  the  most 
part,  far  above  them.  His  words  bearing  directly  upon  the 
subject  are  tinged  with  a  speaking  sadness.  '  Eloquence 
is  another  stream  of  Babylon ;  it  is  one  of  the  many 
objects  qucB  amantur  et  transeunt;'  'it  is  a  mere  frigus  et 
Aquilo  compared  with  the  genial  breezes  of  God,  the 
Auster  iranslatus  de  ccelo.^  " 

He  rose  to  the  clear  empyrean  of  faith  himself ; 
and  grad'ially,  through  every  school  of  illusion, 
scepticism,  and  heresy,  he  qualified  himself  to  reveal 
to  the  believers  of  every  subsequent  age  the  solidity 
of  the  rock  on  which  they  build,  and  the  precious 
vintage  of  consolation  growing  upon  it.  On  the 
contrary,  he  sounded  the  depths  of  Pelagianism  or, 
as  we  call  it,  Arminianism — Naturalism.  He  saw, 
what  we  must  distinctly  see  as  the  basis  of  all 
theological  differences,  that  they  are  in  fact  a 
different  view  of  the  relation  of  the  Infinite  to  the 
finite,  of  God  to    the  universe,  summed   up   in  the 


28        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

two  distinctions  of  Rationalism, — Arminianism,  or 
every  man  his  own  saviour;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  doctrine  of  Supernaturalism  and  grace,  or  God 
in  Christ  the  only  Saviour.  Our  readers  should 
familiarise  themselves,  if  they  be  old  enough,  with 
the  mind  and  method  of  Augustine,  and  they  will 
find  the  cuirass  which  gleams  beneath  his  bishop's 
vest,  or  sword  which  peeps  from  his  side,  at  the 
most  unlikely  places.  He  seems  ready  to  strike  a 
blow  on  Donatist,  or  Manichaean,  or  Pelagian,  and 
furnishes  a  suggestive  method  of  dealing  with 
heresies,  perpetually  renewed,  because  indigenous  to 
the  depraved  soil  on  which  they  spring.  In  him, 
and  in  all  these  men,  there  was  the  true  instinct  for 
souls,  and  they  finely  illustrate  to  us  the  vocation  of 
the  preacher. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   PREACHER'S    VOCATION,— THE   INSTINCT 
FOR  SOULS. 

THE  reader  will  remember  a  singularly  impress- 
ive and  eloquent  passage  in  John  Foster's 
Essay  on  Popular  Ignorance,  in  which  that  usually 
broad  and  suggestive  writer  imagines  himself,  in 
some  solitary  hour,  in  one  of  the  great  cathedrals, 
one  of  those  magnificent  structures  which  have  passed 
down  to  our  times  from  those  remote  periods  preced- 
ing the  Middle,  which  we  are  wont  to  call  the  Dark 
Ages.  The  passage  illustrates  its  writer's  strong  and 
graphic  power  of  painting  ;  but  we  have  always 
missed  in  it  that  breadth  of  charity  and  hope  which 
was  so  distinguishing  a  feature  of  Foster's  mind. 
As  he  paced  the  vast  and  solemn  aisles,  he  appears 
to  have  been  only  reminded  of  the  power  of  darkness 
over  the  souls  of  the  worshippers  in  the  ancient  fane ; 
its  lofty  arches,  columns,  and  superb  vault  only  called 
to  his  imagination  the  errors  which  darkened  the, 
spirits  of  the  people  ;  he  says,  "  The  stone  cried  out 
of  the  wall,  and  the  beam  out  of  the  timber  answered 
it,"  to  reprove  the  long  succession  of  blasphemous 
iniquities  promulgated  there  in  the  name  of  the 
Almighty  ;  the  whole  building  seemed   a  triumphal 


30        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

arch   erected   in   memorial  of  the   extermination    of 
that  truth  which  was  given  to  be  the  Hfe  of  men. 

These  are  scarcely  the  meditations  which  have 
crowded  upon  our  mind  as  we  have  visited  such 
shrines  and  buildings  ;  as  we  looked  through  the 
rolling  centuries,  while  we  paced  the  solitary  aisles, 
we  rather  thought  of  the  countless  thousands  of 
hearts,  grief-stricken  by  the  sorrows  of  nature  or 
the  remorse  of  sin,  which  found  shelter  and  soothing 
amidst  the  awe-inspiring  forest  of  piljars.  All  the 
errors  incident  to  the  Dark  Ages  could  not  conceal 
from  us  that  the  building  was  reared  to  remind 
worshippers  of  the  mighty  sacrifice  of  the  Cross, — its 
very  shape  cruciform  ;  and  the  vast  cross  rising  like 
the  hull  of  an  almost  wrecked  vessel,  but  the  sign  of 
safety  ;  and  the  ever-burning  lamps  trembling  and 
flickering  like  inextinguishable  flames  amidst  the 
gusts  of  a  great  tempest.  Nor,  as  we  looked  at  the 
pulpit,  did  we  think  of  it  merely  as  the  retreat  either 
of  ignorance  or  casuistry,  remembering  the  piles  of 
rich  mediaeval  sermons  which  it  had  been  our  happi- 
ness to  read  ;  and  altogether  the  whole  building 
seemed  like  the  solemn  expression  of  the  instinct  of 
souls  through  dark  times,  feeling  about  if,  haply, 
they  might  find  some  rest  in  eternity  from  the 
storms  of  time.  The  very  tombs  and  sculptures  of 
old  bishops  and  others,  lying  there,  with  folded  and 
uplifted  hands,  over  the  ashes  and  dust  below, 
seemed  to  speak  of  the  peace  attained  after  the  life 
of  strife  and  pain.  So  various  are  men's  ways  of 
looking  at  the  same  thing  :  Foster's  way  was  real  to 
him  ;  ours  was  real  to  us  ;  but  to  us  ours  seemed 
more  human. 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  31 

But  we  have  been  into  other  churches  beside 
cathedrals  where  we  have  found  ourselves  solitary  ; 
we  have  really  been  in  a  great  church,  all  alone,  at 
night  ;  and  indeed  a  church,  any  church,  never 
seems  to  us  so  full  as  when  it  is  quite  emptied  of 
its  congregation,  and  we  are  able  to  sit  in  it  still  and 
alone,  no  voice  from  the  pulpit,  no  voice  from  the 
choir  nor  the  old  organ.  In  such  a  scene  we  have 
sat  down  to  soliloquise  a  little,  the  place  wrapped  in 
dim  mysterious  shadow,  only  a  little  trembling  light 
flickering  through  the  windows  ;  there  the  pulpit 
stood  in  the  distance,  but  now  its  bright  velvet 
covered  up,  and  its  glittering  gold  and  morocco 
Bible  unseen  ;  and  as  we  sat  there  in  the  dim  and 
hazy  spectral  light,  the  place  thronged  with 
shadows  ;  we  trembled  to  see  the  phantoms  of 
congregations  of  departed  hearers  who,  at  that  hour, 
haunted  the  spot  ;  yes,  there  they  were  ;  we  were 
flesh  and  blood,  sitting  in  the  very  midst  and 
presence  of  a  Hebrew  Sheol,  and  the  pulpit,  and  the 
pulpit  stairs,  all  the  way  back  to  the  vestry  door, 
crowded  with  the  preachers  of  many  generations  ; 
there  they  were,  such  a  group  ! — some,  meek  modest 
creatures,  too  mild  and  characterless  to  have  left 
much  impress  behind  them,  to  have  ever  shaken  a 
soul  by  a  terror,  or  to  have  drawn  a  tear  from  the  eye 
by  pity  ;  some,  noble,  manly,  bold,  the  very  spectre 
retaining  the  old  earnest  face,  the  lip  of  the  ghost 
even  yet  alive,  and  the  eye  of  the  spectre  still  full  of 
life  and  fire;  some,  impudent-looking  brothers,  spectres 
who  seemed  even  to  say,  "  Here  we  are  again ! " 
who,  in  their  preaching  day,  had  made  some  sensa- 
tion  by  their   coarseness,    although    little    by    their 


32        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

wisdom  or  conviction  ;  there,  too,  they  were,  another 
cluster  of  ghosts,  apparently  trying  hard  to  push 
their  way  through  the  intangible  into  the  pulpit, 
with  their  pleasing  and  well-written  manuscript  in 
their  hand.  These  were  all  there,  as  we  said,  throng- 
ing the  stairs  as  well  as  the  pulpit ;  and  there  we  clearly 
comprehended  that  in  every  pulpit  and  in  every  pew 
a  real  spiritual  life  and  destiny  goes  on,  and  is 
wrought  out,  and  that,  even  if  the  building  crumble 
to  dust,  through  all  the  after-ages,  the  spot  must  be 
haunted  by  the  ghosts  of  the  great  actors  in  the 
tragedy  performed  there. 

Does  not  the  reader  know  how,  while  looking 
intently  in  silence,  solitude,  and  night,  mists  become 
figures,  and  clouds  take  human  shape  ?  So,  more 
than  half  frightened,  as  we  looked  round,  we  found 
the  pews,  the  galleries,  the  whole  church  filled  with 
spectres — an  amazing  congregation !  We  even 
knew  many  of  them  ;  some  we  had  seen  in  life, 
some  we  knew  by  the  pew  in  which  they  sat  ;  there 
was  old  Bigsby,  the  brewer,  who  was  very  sedulous 
in  his  attendance  for  nearly  half  a  century  at  this 
place,  but  whose  wont  it  was,  pretty  invariably,  so 
soon  as  the  text  was  announced,  to  settle  himself 
in  the  corner  of  the  pew,  with  his  handkerchief  over 
his  head,  and  so  to  sleep  or  doze  out  the  sermon  ; 
there  he  was,  at  it  still  ;  but  the  gruff  voice  which 
had  terrified  so  many  a  young  minister  was  hushed. 
There  was  Mrs.  Simper,  the  lady  who  kept  the 
Circulating  Library,  and  who  could  be  always 
calculated  upon  for  having  the  young  students  to 
stay  at  her  house,  seizing  upon  that  as  a  golden 
opportunity    for    talking  sentiment    with  a  dish  of 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  ii 


scandal ;  and  there  was  Glibwell  Blunt,  Esquire,  J. P., 
who  rented  the  ten-guinea  pew,  curtained  round 
with  its  crimson  damask  on  its  brass  hangings. 
Nobody  suspected  Blunt  of  any  piety,  but  he 
managed  to  hold  the  Church  and  congregation 
beneath  the  spell  of  his  authority,  for  the  deacons 
were  terrified  lest  he  should  go  to  church,  and  he 
held  a  sort  of  political  whip  over  the  vicar  of  the 
parish  by  his  importance  in  Egerton  Chapel.  We 
saw  some  other  spectres.  Modest,  but  radiantly 
dignified,  with  the  mingled  lights  of  shrewdness,  piety, 
and  self-respect,  even  upon  the  phantom  face  which 
looked  pale  through  the  mist,  sat  old  Radley 
Rightside,  who  had  that  curious  popular  weakness 
for  doing  good  in  a  sly,  underhand  sort  of  fashion, 
so  that  scarce  any  soul  knew  anything  about  it ;  it 
was  quite  wonderful  that  after  his  death,  all  the 
collections  dropped  about  two-thirds,  and  then  it 
was  found  that,  in  his  mean  and  underhand  sort 
of  way,  not  letting  his  left  hand  know  what  his 
right  hand  did,  he  had  for  years  been  in  the  habit 
of  contributing  to  the  boxes  about  two-thirds  of 
the  collection  in  his  cunningly  disposed  Bank  of 
England  notes.  Ah  !  there  they  all  were  ;  but  we 
must  not  pursue  the  inventory,  and,  indeed,  we  could 
not  ourselves,  for,  while  we  were  attempting  to 
decipher  the  individualities  of  each  pew,  we  heard  a 
low,  muttered  undertone,  a  conversation  going  on, 
and  we  began  to  realise  that,  while  all  the  spectres  in 
the  pulpit  and  the  pews  were  phantoms  of  the  past, 
and,  in  fact,  had  departed, — excepting  so  far  as 
departed  spirits  will  tenaciously  hold  on  to  the 
places  on  the  earth  where  their  clay  tabernacles  had 

3 


34        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

held  their  being, — the  very  pulpit  and  the  pew 
were  still  alive.  Yes,  the  wood  seemed  alive,  and 
the  two  were  holding  colloquy  with  each  other.  It 
was  the  pew  who  began  it.  Perhaps  we  missed  the 
first  sentences,  but  it  seemed  to  be  saying, — "  No, 
Pulpit,  you  want  life,  vivacity  ;  in  a  word,  what  you 
want  is  instinct^  And  said  the  pulpit,  "  I  am 
surprised  to  hear  a  wooden  thing  like  you  begin  to 
talk  to  me." 

Pew  :  "  Wooden  !  well,  then,  there's  a  pair  of  us, 
wood  up  there,  wood  down  here.  But,  Mr.  Pulpit, 
I  don't  know  Vv'hether  it  is  the  natural  peevishness 
of  old  age,  but  it  seems  to  me,  you  are  strangely 
behind  the  old  voices  that  I  have  often  heard 
sounding  from  you  in  other  days." 

Pulpit :  "  My  dear  Pew,  you  should  remember 
the  times  are  not  now  what  they  were  when  you  were 
a  young  pew  ;  consider  the  absolutely  indispensable, 
and  that  the  requirements  of  the  age  and  the  scho- 
lastic refinements  of  the  times  to  which  I  have  come 
suggest  the  propriety  of  adopting  a  tone  of  discourse 
more  exalted  than  that  of  these  old  spectres  whom 
I  perceive  to  be  thronging  my  boards  and  stairs." 

Pezv :  "What  big  talk!  what  Gog- and- Magog 
words  you  use  !  but  ah,  Mr.  Pulpit,  don't  you  per- 
ceive, don't  you  know  that  the  pew  is  always  the 
pew — I  mean  that  souls  are  always  souls — the  same 
in  all  times  and  ages?  If  you  can  believe  it, — and 
if  you  cannot  believe  it,  I  don't  see  what  business 
you  have  up  there  at  all, —  sorrows  and  sufferings, 
doubts  and  sins,  family  grief  and  heart  remorse,  are 
always  the  same,  and  your  business  is  to  deal  with 
us  pews  as  men  and  women,  and  you  should  have  the 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  35 

instinct  to  search  out  our  weak  place,  our  vain 
place,  our  suffering  place  ;  find  the  joints  in  the 
armour,  and,  if  you  have  the  true  instinct,  you  will 
soon  lodge  your  arrow  there," 

Pulpit  :  "  I  am  not  so  sure  about  all  that  you 
are  saying  ;  it  is  my  belief  that  I  have  fallen  upon  a 
time,  unfortunately  for  me,  when  pews  are  not  so 
pervious  to  whacks  from  the  pulpit  as  they  were  once  : 
now,  I  daresay  you,  individually,  are  a  very  good 
sort  of  pew,  but,  on  the  whole,  1  have  come  to  think 
that  the  pew  in  these  days  is  the  master  of  the 
pulpit,  and  is  only  where  it  is  to  permit  the  pulpit 
to  say  what  the  pew  already  believes  it  knows." 

Pew :  "  Ah  !  and  therefore  it  is  that  I  often  fancy 
I  see  you  cast  trembling  eyes  to  the  pews  which  are 
the  habitations  of  your  rich  constituents.  My  dear 
Pulpit,  I  am  a  very  faithful  old  pew.  I  am  very 
glad  to  think  that  possibly  your  worldly  status  is 
something  better  than  it  was  in  the  olden  time,  but 
what  I  fear  is,  that  the  instinct  for  souls  has  been 
very  much  fattened  out  of  you  lately.  Now  I  don't 
want  you  to  be  a  Salvation  Armyite,  nor  a  fanatic  ; 
but,  rely  upon  it,  you  will  be  a  very  useless  old 
pulpit  unless  you  love  and  feel  an  interest  in  the 
souls  of  men  and  women.  Look  beneath,  or  look 
above  their  miserable  worldly  station,  however  they 
may  visit  you  with  their  patronage  or  their  peevish- 
ness ;  help  us  to  feel  that  you  are  independent,  and 
cannot  be  bought,  and  that  you  seek  not  ours,  but 
us." 

Pulpit :  "  Oh,  Heavenly  Providence  !  I  beseech 
Thee  then  to  take  care  of  me,  for,  in  that  case,  I 
know  that  I  shall  find  the  pews  all  empty,  and  my 


36        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

church  only    filled   by  a   veritable   congregation   of 
ghosts." 

Pew  :  "Still  you  should  remember  that  a  lawyer's, 
a  soldier's,  a  physician's  calling  is  a  profession  ; 
merchandise  is  a  trade  :  yours  is  neither  a  profession 
nor  a  trade  ;  if  it  be  anything,  it  is  an  instinct — ■ 
what  it  used  to  be  described  as,  *  a  call' — an  instinct 
• — an  irrepressible  something,  which  compels  you  to 
tell  men  and  women  that,  '  through  the  tender 
mercy  of  God,  the  Dayspring  from  on  high  has 
visited  them,  to  give  light  to  them  that  sit  in  dark- 
ness and  in  the  shadow  of  death,  and  to  guide  their 
steps  into  a  way  of  peace.' " 

We  thought  we  heard  tones  seeming  to  indicate 
that  Pulpit  was  about  to  give  some  indignant  reply, 
and  to  what  height  the  controversy  might  have  risen 
we  do  not  know,  for  we  were  aroused  from  our  half- 
slumberous  listenings  to  the  strange  colloquies  by 
the  streaming  of  lights  down  the  aisles  of  the  chapel; 
our  friends  came  hurrying  to  look  after  us,  surprised 
at  our  absence,  and  little  suspecting  the  companion- 
ship we  had  kept  and  the  conversation  to  which  we 
had  listened,  the  principal  effect  of  which  had  pro- 
duced upon  our  mind  a  sense  that  the  strong  desire 
in  the  honest  old  pew  was  to  be  assured,  that  in  the 
pulpit  there  was  the  realisation  of  its  great  design — 
the  instinct  for  souls. 

The  eminent  and  excellent  late  Dr.  Robert 
Vaughan  took  a  view  of  the  modern  pulpit  quite 
as  disconsolate  as  that  taken  above  by  the  plain  old 
pew. 

We  quite  agree  with  him,  that,  for  the  most  part, 
*•'  the  pulpit,  instead  of  being  in  advance  of  the  times, 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS.  ^7 

is  a  pitiable  loiterer  in  the  rear  of  them."  We  quite 
agree  with  him,  that  "  if  we  would  see  Christianity 
advance  amidst  its  new  struggles  in  this  world  of 
ours,  our  Christian  literature  must  not  be  second  in 
our  thoughts  to  our  pulpit,  and  our  pulpit  must 
become  treble-fold  the  object  of  our  cost  and  care." 

What,  then,  is  the  work  of  the  pulpit — the  work 
of  public  ministration — done.?  Assuredly,  assuredly, 
no  !  Did  the  men  of  the  modern  pulpit  but  feel  it 
and  see  it,  there  lies  before  it  a  more  glorious  land 
of  thought  and  imagination  than  any  over  which  it 
has  hitherto  swa3'ed  ;  the  sceptre  of  its  genius  and 
its  power  is  much  nobler  ;  as  it  must  ever  be  for  a 
monarch  to  rule  an  enlightened  than  an  unen- 
lightened people,  so  much  nobler  must  it  be  for  the 
public  teacher  to  acquire  an  influence  over  an 
educated  than  an  uneducated  audience.  But,  for 
the  most  part,  it  may  be  said  that  the  modern 
ministry  has  given  up  all  competition  with  the  in- 
tellectualising  agencies  of  the  press  ;  and  yet,  let  it 
be  rightly  thought  on,  the  mission  of  the  pulpit  is 
ever  in  its  degree  inferior  as  an  intellectual  process, 
and  it  is  so  because  it  appeals  to  so  much  larger  an 
audience  than  can  possibly  be  brought  at  once  and 
immediately  within  the  range  of  a  great  book.  But 
the  preacher  should  absorb  all  the  light  which 
genius,  or  discovery,  or  science,  will  pour  upon  him  ; 
he  should  be  a  channel  for  the  communication,  to 
inferior  minds,  of  instruction  ;  he  should  fit  himself 
to  be  the  exponent,  the  earnest  and  enlightened 
exponent,  of  truth  to  the  world  ;  he  should  be  a 
lighthouse — a  witness  for  God.  Do  our  readers 
think  that,  on  the  whole,  he  is  so  ? 


38        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

But  if  he  were  so,  his  power  would  be  as  mighty 
as  the  power  of  the  press.  To  a  very  great  degree, 
the  inefficiency  of  the  pulpit  arises  from  its  non- 
chalance and  carelessness — as  we  have  said  before 
its  deficiency  of  feeling.  Would  you,  my  friend 
retain  your  place  in  the  pulpit  ?  Would  you  com- 
pete successfully  with  the  press  ?  Well,  it  is  easy 
to  do  so,  only  this  is  necessary, — take  care  that  your 
hearers,  take  care  that  the  public  in  general,  have 
not  a  more  perfect  sympathiser  in  the  book  than  in 
the  preacher.  Yes,  take  care  of  that — take  care 
that  there  is  not  more  real  life  in  dead  paper  and 
printed  letters  than  in  real  flesh  and  blood  !  For 
look  !  a  man  goes  to  the  preacher ;  he  finds  him 
passionless  and  cold,  idealess  and  dull,  unread  and 
uninstructive  ;  he  turns  hastily  away.  He  goes  to 
a  book  ;  he  finds  it  full  of  passion  and  warmth,  full 
of  ideas  and  excitement,  full  of  knowledge  and 
instruction  ;  he  finds  the  book  to  be  a  sympathising 
friend.  He  finds  the  preacher  to  be  a  tedious,  tire- 
some talker.  Is  it  wonderful  that  he  should  turn 
with  interest  again  and  again  to  the  one,  and  turn 
with  some  indignation  from  the  other  .-*  Now  that 
system  of  pulpit  ministration  is  quite  defective  which 
does  not  compete  successfully  with  the  book.  In 
the  management  of  an  efficient  man,  every  sermon 
might  be  made,  certainly  not  as  great  as  the  greatest 
books,  but  as  interesting  as  the  most  interesting. 

Oh,  consider  the  teeming  masses  of  the  growing 
populations  !  Oh,  consider  how,  with  their  growing 
education,  there  is  a  growing  thirst  for  knowledge, 
for  ideas,  for  instruction,  for  systematic  information  ! 
Oh,  consider,  after  all,  notwithstanding  the  power  of 


THE  INS17NCT  FOR   SOULS.  39 

the  press,  how  Httle  they  can  read,  and  how  much  less 
they  can  think  !  Oh,  consider  how  a  man  brimful  of 
knowledge  and  power  may  arrest  them  !  Consider, 
that  through  him  may  be  poured  every  variety  of 
popular  learning,  the  condensations  of  every  kind  of 
knowledge,  till  the  Christian  temple  should  again 
be  a  Pantheon  of  all  things  bearing  witness  for  God, 
Consider,  that  after  all,  the  tongue  does  write  far 
more  impressively  than  the  pen  ;  that  the  memory 
takes  far  firmer  hold  of  the  oral  than  of  any  kind  of 
pictorial  communication.  Consider  how  inconclusive, 
how  inconsecutive,  almost  all  reading  is,  how  slightly 
it  impresses  the  character  and  the  understanding. 
Consider  the  magnificent  surface  over  which  a  well- 
charged  voice  can  travel,  that  a  sermon  or  speech 
may  be  made  to  enter  the  ears  of  from  five  hundred 
to  two  thousand  persons,  claiming,  compelling  their 
attention  ;  and  then,  in  the  presence  of  such  con- 
siderations as  these,  who  will  venture  to  say  that 
the  pulpit  may  not  compete,  in  the  potentiality  of 
its  influence,  with  the  press  ? 

Consider,  again,  the  peculiarity  of  the  mission  of 
the  human  voice.  Books  seldom  give  first  im- 
pulses ;  books  have  not  yet  touched  some  classes  of 
mind  at  all.  No,  but  the  human  voice  is  powerfully 
arrestive,  nor,  so  far  as  the  dominion  goes,  can  the 
pen  boast  of  a  kingdom  so  imperial.  Books  are 
not  so  much  the  missionaries  as  legislators  of 
thought.  The  pulpit  ought  never  to  cease  to  regard 
itself  as  the  missionary  ;  its  office  is  to  dig  in  the 
garden  of  the  soul  ;  its  lofty  office  is  to  excavate  a 
road  for  moral  manhood,  to  indicate  a  pathway  to 
spiritual    attainments  ;    and    no    book   can    perform 


40        THE   VOCATION  OF  TBE  PREACHER. 

the  peculiar  office  of  the  pulpit.  Books  that  attempt 
that  office  cannot  so  well  be  read.  No  books  can 
so  well  rouse  flagging  and  exhausted  powers,  no 
books  can  so  well  grapple  with  wandering  convictions, 
no  books  can  so  well  quicken  generous  and  active 
impulses  ;  the  human  voice  dares  to  linger  longer 
in  draping  out  an  idea,  dares  to  dilate  longer,  to 
decorate  more  than  the  pen — dares  a  more  Corinthian 
and  ornate  discourse — a  larger  field  of  illustration,  a 
greater  variety  of  figures, — when  all  this  is  con- 
sidered, it  does  appear  that  the  pulpit  may  success- 
fully compete  with  the  press. 

"  Why,"  says  Sydney  Smith,  in  the  preface  to  the 
volume  of  his  sermons,  which  we  believe  has  never 
been  reprinted,  "  Why  are  we  natural  everywhere 
but  in  the  pulpit }  No  man  expresses  warm  and 
animated  feelings  anywhere  else  with  his  mouth 
alone,  but  with  his  whole  body  ;  he  articulates  with 
every  limb,  and  talks  from  head  to  foot  with  a 
thousand  voices.  Why  this  hyloplexia  on  sacred 
occasions  alone  ?  why  call  in  the  aid  of  paralysis  to 
piety  ?  Is  it  a  rule  of  oratory  to  balance  the  style 
against  the  subject,  and  to  handle  the  most  sublime 
truths  in  the  dullest  language  and  the  driest  manner  .'' 
Is  sin  to  be  taken  from  men  as  Eve  was  taken  from 
Adam,  by  casting  them  into  a  deep  slumber  }  Or 
from  what  possible  perversion  of  common-sense  are 
we  all  to  look  like  field-preachers  in  Zembla,  holy 
lumps  of  ice  numbed  into  quiescence,  and  stagna- 
tion, and  mumbling  }  "  * 

"In  short,"  remarks  Dr.  Vaughan,  "the  style  we 

*  See  "Life  of  Sydney  Smith,"  vol.  i.  p.  46. 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  41 

want  for  the  pulpit  is  that  of  Foster,  broken  up  for 
the  greater  part  into  briefer  apportionments,  and 
impregnated  throughout  with  something  of  the 
vivacity  and  fire  of  Hale.  We  covet  the  simplicity 
and  directness  of  the  great  essayist,  but  we  would 
fain  see  those  qualities  allied  with  the  ease,  and 
animation,  and  onward  speed  of  the  great  preacher."* 
And,  yet  again,  let  it  be  thought  how  much 
we  need  a  legitimate  censorship  over  the  press,  a 
censorship  over  the  newspaper  press  ;  and  most  of 
the  newspapers  of  the  kingdom  are  merely  venal, 
the  bought,  the  hired  advocates  of  classes,  and  of 
opinions.  A  few  noble  and  independent  instances 
we  know,  but  how  few  !  A  censorship  over  the 
impurity  of  the  press — the  flagrant  outrages  upon 
every  virtuous  idea  and  life  ;  over  the  panderers  for 
impurity — the  vile  and  reckless  children  of  genius 
and  of  hell — whose  office  it  is  to  fan  the  flames  of 
every  unhallowed  lust  A  censorship  over  the  false 
doctrines  and  errors  of  the  press  ;  over  its  false 
philosophies  and  perverted  facts  ;  over  its  "  Vestiges 
of  Creation  "  and  its  "  Constitutions  of  Man  ; "  over 
its  G.  Newmans  and  Strausses,  its  La  Marcks  and 
Combes  ;  justly  treating  their  virtues  and  their 
truths,  and  clearly  exposing  their  sophisms  and 
their  mistakes.  A  censorship  over  the  politics  of 
the  press,  holding  up  to  the  ineffable  light  the 
rnyrmidons  of  tyranny  and  oppression  ;  holding  up 
to  scorn  the  daring  traducers  of  truth  and  freedom  ; 
holding  up  to  the  blaze  of  Christian  light  those  who 
revile  its  own  pure  beauties  and  gloriously  liberal 
tenets.     Where  shall  we  look  for  a  censorship  like 

*  "  Essays." 


42        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

this  but  to  the  pulpit  ?  Why  should  not  the 
minister  devote  one  evening  in  the  week,  or  even 
the  Sabbath  evening  occasionally,  to  a  censorship 
like  this  ?  Devoting  the  morning  to  the  more 
especial  services  of  worship  and  experimental  and 
spiritual  instruction,  standing  there  within  the  full 
shadow  of  the  Cross,  the  evening  might  well  be 
devoted  to  the  exhibition  of  the  catholic  genius  of 
Christianity,  and  its  identity  with  every  truly  human 
thought.  To  object  to  this  course  (and  the  writer 
is  quite  aware  how  bitter,  and  cruel,  and  scornful 
will  be  the  objections  in  some  quarters,  how  wilful 
will  be  the  misconception  of  his  intention)  is  of  a 
piece  with  the  conduct  of  those  Pharisees  who 
quarrelled  with  Jesus  because  He  restored  the  blind 
man's  vision  on  the  Sabbath-day.  Would  the  pulpit 
compete  with  the  press,  let  it  be  ubiquitous,  like  the 
press,  searching  everywhere  for  intelligence,  for  in- 
struction, for  illustration — as  ubiquitous  as  evil  ;  let 
the  voice  of  the  pulpit  follow  the  writing  of  the  evil 
pen  like  a  shadow.  Away  with  the  fastidiousness, 
the  etiquette  of  the  pulpit  !  We  arrange  our  pulpit 
topics  so  nicely,  and  treat  them  so  gingerly,  that  we 
act  like  the  servants  of  the  king  of  Spain  who 
allowed  their  master  to  perish  in  the  fire  because  the 
valet  could  not  be  found  whose  duty  it  was  to  ex- 
tinguish it.  Let  the  pulpit  do  its  work  boldly, 
fearlessly,  vigilantly,  and  the  press  will  be  no  farther 
ahead  of  it  than  it  is  natural  for  a  fountain  to  be 
ahead  of  a  river. 

Will  this  ideal  be  the  pulpit  of  the  future  t  and  if 
the  pulpit  lag  behind  this  now,  who  is  responsible, 
the  pulpit  or  the  pew  .-' 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS.  43 

It  may  be  admitted  that,  with  ail  their  l<nowledge, 
many  men  seem  to  have  prepared  for  the  study, 
and  not  for  the  pulpit ;  the  college  has  made 
schoolmasters,  not  ministers,  like  some,  of  whom  a 
witty  German,  Richter,  speaks,  who  had  "  learned 
the  Paternoster  in  every  tongue,  but  never  prayed 
with  it ; "  so  some  ministers  have  attained  almost 
every  conceivable  kind  of  knowledge,  but  never 
preached  with  it.  We  do  not  speak  as  if  we  sup- 
posed the  powers  of  our  readers  were  above  the 
average,  and,  in  any  case,  the  preacher  should  read, 
and  marshal  his  ideas,  put  them  in  order.  It  is 
knowledge — it  is  more  than  knowledge,  it  is  wisdom 
— which  enables  the  preacher  to  tell  upon  his 
hearers.  It  has  been  well  said  that  hearers  have 
often  neither  the  skill  nor  the  will  to  take  home  to 
themselves  general  discourses  ;  therefore  the  preacher 
must  make  the  application  himself,  as  Nathan, 
"  Thou  art  the  man."  Bridges  remarks  on  Ecclesi- 
astes  xii.  2,  "  The  goads  and  the  nails,  i.e.,  the 
words  of  the  wise,  must  not  be  laid  by  as  if  the 
posts  would  knock  them  in,  but  must  be  fastened 
by  the  masters  of  assemblies."  This  is  the  preacher's 
study,  this  his  vocation,  to  reach  the  conscience. 
This  is  power  in  preaching  ;  but  it  needs  deep 
experience,  prayer,  and  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures, 
to  obtain  power  with  souls.  We  have  no  doubt 
that  a  far  more  efficient  test  than  the  loudest 
acclamation  and  applause  is  the  test  of  tears.  St. 
Augustine,  in  his  "Art  of  Preaching,"  tells  us  that  he 
undertook  to  dissuade  the  people  of  one  of  those 
ancient  cities,  Csesarea,  from  a  barbarous  annual 
practice   of  civil   conflict,  in  which  neighbours,  and 


44        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

even  sons,  fathers,  and  brothers,  divided  themselves 
into  two  parties,  to  fight  at  the  particular  seasons  of  the 
year,  each  one  killing  whom  he  could.      He  says  : — • 

**  I  availed  myself,  as  far  as  possible,  of  the  grand  in 
eloquence,  in  order  that  I  might  tear  away  and  banish  from 
their  customs  and  their  hearts  this  inveterate  evil ;  but  I 
did  not  think  I  had  accomplished  anything  so  long  as  I 
heard  their  acclamations  only — until  I  saw  them  in  tears. 
Their  acclamations  showed  me  that  they  were  taught  and 
delighted  ;  but  their  tears  showed  me  that  they  were  per- 
suaded ;  and  when  I  saw  their  tears,  I  felt  that  the  savage 
custom,  which  had  been  handed  down  from  one  father's 
grandfather's  ancestor  to  another,  would  be  subdued,  and 
that,  too,  before  I  was  authorised  to  feel  so  by  the  thing 
itself.  Soon  after,  having  closed  my  discourse,  I  turned  to 
give  thanks  to  God — and,  lo  !  Christ  being  propitious,  eight 
years  and  more  have  elapsed  since  anything  of  the  kind  has 
been  attempted.  Many  other  things  have  occurred  in  my 
experience,  from  which  I  have  learned  that  those  who  have 
been  in  any  measure  affected  by  the  grand  in  a  wise  display 
of  eloquence  show  it  by  sighs  rather  than  by  clamour, 
sometimes  by  sobbing,  and  finally  by  a  change  of  life." 

This  guides  us  to  the  true  vocation  of  the 
preacher.  We  read  of  an  ancient  father  who  wept 
at  the  applause  given  to  his  sermons  ;  he  felt  that 
his  words  had  not  gone  deep  enough.  "  Would  to 
God,"  said  he,  "  they  had  gone  away  silent  and 
thoughtful."  Well  says  Bridges,*  "  We  must 
preach  to  our  people,  as  well  as  before  them  ; "  and 
says  Robert  Hall,  "  The  conscience  of  the  audience 
should  feel  the  hand  of  the  preacher  searching   it, 

*  See  the  admirable  and  almost  exhaustive  work  "  On  the 
Christian  Ministry."     By  Rev.  Charles  Bridges,  M.A. 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  45 

and  every  individual  should  know  where  to  class 
himself."  The  spirit  in  preaching  should  be,  "  I 
have  a  message  unto  thcer  If,  as  we  walk  along, 
we  hear  a  cry  of  fire,  we  feel  an  uneasy  tendency  to 
look  or  run  every  way  ;  it  is  different  if  any  one 
touches  us  on  the  shoulder  and  says,  "  Yojir  house 
is  on  fire."  So  great  is  the  difference  between  the 
preaching  which  deals  in  generals  and  that  which, 
coming  home  to  close  particulars,  arrests  the  soul. 

But  all  this,  which  is  the  very  highest  order  of 
speech  and  eloquence,  cannot  be  attained  without 
culture — without  deep  knowledge  of  the  ways  and 
springs  of  the  human  soul  ;  nor  fancy  that  the  power 
to  do  this  consists  merely  in  action  or  vehemence, 
mistaking,  as  the  editor  of  Vinet  *  says,  ^^perspiration 
for  inspiration"  nor  that  the  work  is  done  by 
preaching  to  the  nerves,  instead  of  to  consciences 
and  souls.  Thus  the  vocation  of  the  preacher  is 
power,  religious  power.  Suppose,  then,  we  drop  the 
word  eloquence,  as  an  ambition  to  which  we  strive 
to  attain  ;  perhaps  the  probability  is,  that  as  that 
word  is  understood,  average  preachers  are  not 
eloquent,  and  never  will  be  eloquent.  We  tJiink  of 
eloquence  too  rnuch  ;  what,  then,  should  we  care,  so 
long  as  our  own  natures  are  Divinely  touched  and 
established  i* — so  long  as  we  can  touch,  we  can  teach, 
we  can  instruct.  "  I  often  repeat  to  myself,"  says 
Reinhardt,  that  mighty  master  of  highest  pulpit 
oratory,    "  that,   after   all,  the    Christian  preacher  is 

*  Few  works  will  serve  the  really  thoughtful  student  of 
preaching  more  than  "  Homiletics,  or  the  Theory  of  Preach- 
ing." By  Alexander  Vinet,  excellently  translated  and  admir- 
ably annotated  and  edited  by  Rev.  A.  Faussett,  M.A. 


46        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

more  an  instructor  than  an  orator."  Of  course. 
Is  not  this  the  apostolic  designation,  ^^  Apt  to  teach"? 
A  preacher  may  be  a  perfect,  a  finished,  and  most 
successful  orator,  and  yet  miss  every  purpose  and 
end,  and  almost  every  art  of  the  Christian  ministry  ; 
but  the  instructor,  the  teacher,  must  be  "  thoroughly 
furnished  "  himself,  and  he  will  furnish  the  minds  of 
some,  even  if  he  fail  to  touch  their  souls. 

All  persons  accustomed  to  lecturing  or  public 
speaking  will  have  noticed  that,  in  the  course  of 
their  wanderings,  they  meet  with  two  audiences. 
There  is  a  plain,  uneducated  audience,  unpolished, 
but  unconventionalised,  to  whom,  if  they  would 
speak,  they  must  present  their  speech  in  sharp, 
short,  fiery  sentences,  in  words  that  flash  instantly, 
and,  in  the  flash,  convey  and  reveal.  We  have  little 
of  this  order  of  eloquence  now  ;  but  where  it  is, 
and  where  it  meets  its  proper  audience,  it  kindles, 
till  the  whole  people  are  borne  along  on  the  blaze 
and  the  passion  of  it.  The  feelings  of  the  people 
become  ungovernable ;  they  are  clasped  and  borne 
along  by  irrepressible  emotion  ;  they  shout,  they 
cheer.  The  building  in  which  the  oration  rings 
shakes  with  the  peal  of  rapture  and  of  praise. 
True,  after  it  is  all  over,  one  meditates  that  the 
people  who  yielded  themselves  to  the  fervour  of 
this  furore  were  a  simple  kind  of  folk,  much  more 
accustomed  to  follow  their  feelings  than  to  inquire 
for  the  verdicts  of  cultured  understandings ;  but, 
then,  the  orator  probably  reflected  to  himself,  that 
the  strength  of  his  speech  also  was  not  in  his 
culture,  but  in  his  soul  ;  that  he  and  his  audience 
captivated    each    other    by  their    possession  of   the 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS.  ^7 

over-soul  ;  they  took  fire  not  by  their  studied  art, 
but  by  their  great  sympathies ;  and  the  voice  of 
the  orator,  as  it  rose  aloft,  was  like  a  wind  amidst 
the  trees,  or  sweeping  down  the  dark  hills  :  very 
fine,  indeed,  but  dependent,  too,  upon  the  trees 
and  the  mountains  ;  the  wind  had  a  voice  in  itself, 
but  the  trees  and  mountains  awakened  the  echo. 

There  is  another  speaker,  and  there  is  another 
audience  ;  an  audience  intensely,  too  intensely, 
capable  of  appreciating,  but  incapable  of  applauding. 
The  speaker  who  would  succeed  must  cut  his 
sentences  like  cameos,  and  work  all  the  separate 
parts  of  his  figures  together,  till  they  have  the 
exquisiteness  of  mosaics.  He  makes  a  slip  of  one 
word  ;  it  is  fatal  to  him  in  the  estimation  of  his 
audience.  His  audience  listens  with  a  fine,  hesi- 
tating, critical  ear,  much  more  pleased  with  the 
sense  of  propriety  than  the  sense  of  power.  It 
never  yields  itself  until  it  is  taken  possession  of, 
and  conventionalism  is  a  fine  antidote  to  this  effect. 
This  audience  appreciates  clever  reading  more  than 
lofty  passion,  and  clear  lines  more  than  cloudy  and 
mystic  glories.  These  two  audiences,  alive  now  in 
our  age,  and  usually  to  be  found  in  many  past  ages, 
sufficiently  represent  the  two  stages  of  poetry,  or 
of  oratory  :  poetry  in  its  primeval  age — the  age 
before  the  reign  of  Horace,  and  of  art,  when,  in 
fact,  there  was  no  art  oi  poetry  ;  for  poetry,  of  course, 
precedes  the  •art,  even  as  the  social  man  precedes 
law  and  society — and  poetry  in  the  artist  age,  when 
the  sensations  are  placed  in  the  cabinet,  and  kept, 
and  turned  over,  and  when  mighty  heavings  of 
heart   give   place  to   pretty  little  pictures,  and  the 


48        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

rapture  and  the  passion  are  succeeded  by  a  fine 
eye  for  critical  analysis  ;  and  the  power  to  review 
a  fine  poem,  and  to  demonstrate  its  deficiencies,  is 
even  far  more  than  to  write  it.  In  the  poetry  of 
Palestine,  in  Hebrew  poetry,  we  are  brought  into 
the  presence  of  the  former  of  these  two  ;  and  if  such 
a  plain  illustration  as  that  we  have  used  may  serve, 
then  let  it  serve  to  illustrate  the  poetry  of  Judea  and 
the  poetry  of  Greece,  after  the  age  of  Homer, — the 
poetry  of  passion  and  of  truth,  and  the  poetry  of 
culture  and  of  form.  The  storm-lit  and  phos- 
phorescent sea  may  image  to  us  the  one  ;  the 
clear,  calm,  cold,  glacial  mountain,  visited  all  night 
by  troops  of  stars,  may  seem  to  us  the  type  of  the 
other.  The  first,  a  grand,  sonorous,  and  inadjectived 
world,  where  everything  is  nominative,  and  intense 
in  action  ;  a  speculative  lens,  before  which  all  things 
turn  into  the  qualities  of  bodies,  may  seem  to  us 
a  type  of  the  latter. 

Where  is  the  model  of  the  vocation  of  the 
preacher — where .''  Why,  where  should  it  be  but 
in  the  Book  which  is  to  be  to  the  Christian  preacher 
— text,  doctrine,  creed,  life,  inspiration,  consolation, 
history,  biography — everything  ?  There  are  some 
things  in  the  manners  and  customs  of  old  Palestine 
with  reference  to  its  prophets,  which  we  must  leave 
behind  ;  but  for  the  preacher's  work,  we  say,  enter 
the  schools  of  the  ancient  prophets.  In  the  ancient 
prophet-man,  our  example  is  very  •greatly  there. 
In  Dean  Stanley's  "  History  of  the  Jewish  Church," 
this  fact  is  well  brought  out.  He  attempts  to  bring 
before  us  the  schools  of  the  prophets,  and  the 
power  of  the  prophet  as  a  commanding  teacher  and 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS.  49 

leader  of  the  people.  He  brings  out,  with  con- 
siderable distinctness  and  force,  the  prophetic 
insight  into  the  human  heart  ;  the  close  connection 
of  the  prophet  with  the  thoughts,  hearts,  and  con- 
sciences of  men  ;  the  consciousness  of  the  presence 
of  God  ;  the  teaching  of  the  future,  constantly 
speaking  of  things  to  come ;  the  power  of  the 
future  both  for  the  Church  and  the  individual. 
"  The  whole  prophetic  teaching  stakes  itself  on  the 
issue  that  all  will  go  well  with  us  when  once  we 
turn.  The  future  is  everything,  the  past  is  nothing. 
TJte  turning,  the  change,  the  fixing  our  faces  in  the 
right  instead  of  the  wrong  direction,  this  is  the 
difficulty,  the  crisis  of  life  ;  but  this  done,  then, 
cried  the  prophet,  *  though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet, 
they  shall  be  as  white  as  snow.'  '  He  will  turn 
again,  He  will  have  compassion  upon  us  ;  He  will 
subdue  our  iniquities  ; '  and  '  Thou  wilt  cast  all 
their  sins  into  the  depths  of  the  sea.' "  Dean 
Stanley  says  : — 

"  Oh,  if  the  spirit  of  our  profession,  of  our  order,  of  our 
body,  were  the  spirit,  or  anything  like  the  spirit,  of  the 
ancient  prophets !  if  with  us  truth,  charity,  justice,  fairness 
to  opponents,  were  a  passion,  a  doctrine,  a  point  of  honour, 
to  be  upheld,  through  good  report  and  evil,  with  the  same 
energy  as  that  with  which  we  uphold  our  position,  our 
opinions,  our  interpretations,  our  partnerships  !  A  dis- 
tinguished prelate  has  well  said,  *  It  makes  all  the  difference 
in  the  world  whether  we  put  the  duty  of  truth  in  the  first 
place  or  in  the  second  place.'  Yes  !  that  is  exactly  the 
difference  between  the  spirit  of  the  world  and  that  of  the 
Bible.  The  spirit  of  the  world  asks,  first,  '  Is  it  safe  ?  is  it 
pious  ? '  secondly,  '  Is  it  true  ? '     The  spirit  of  the  prophets 

4 


50        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

asks,  first,  '  Is  it  true  ? '  secondly,  *  Is  it  safe  ?  '  The 
spirit  of  the  world  asks,  first,  '  Is  it  prudent  ? '  secondly, 
'  Is  it  right  ?  '  The  spirit  of  the  prophets  asks,  first,  *  Is  it 
right  ?  '  secondly,  '  Is  it  prudent  ?  '  It  is  not  that  they  and 
we  hold  different  doctrines  on  these  matters,  but  that  we 
hold  them  in  different  proportions.  What  they  put  first,  we 
put  second ;  what  we  put  second,  they  put  first.  The 
religious  energy  which  we  reserve  for  objects  of  temporary 
and  secondary  importance,  they  reserved  for  objects  of  eternal 
and  primary  importance.  When  Ambrose  closed  the  doors 
of  the  church  of  Milan  against  the  blood-stained  hands  of 
the  devout  Theodosius,  he  acted  in  the  spirit  of  a  prophet. 
When  Ken,  in  spite  of  his  doctrine  of  the  Divine  right  of 
kings,  rebuked  Charles  II.  on  his  death-bed  for  his  long- 
unrepented  vices,  those  who  stood  by  were  justly  reminded 
of  the  ancient  prophets.  When  Savonarola,  at  Florence, 
threw  the  whole  energy  of  his  religious  zeal  into  burning  in- 
dignation against  the  sins  of  the  city,  high  and  low,  his 
sermons  read  more  like  Hebrew  prophecies  than  modern 
homilies."  * 

And  we  will  touch  upon  one  very  powerful  source 
of  inspiration  through  the  whole  Jewish  prophet-host 
— it  was  national  ;  they  saw,  they  felt  God  in  their 
history.  We  are  amazed  that  this  is  not  more 
frequently  to  us  inspiration  in  our  pulpit.  We 
wonder  much,  and  often  seem  to  hear  the  old 
prophet  saying  to  us  :  "  What  iniquity  have  your 
fathers  found  in  Me,  saith  the  Lord  ?  "  Turn,  for 
contrast,  to  the  Hebrew  pages.  What  stories  of 
battles  !■ — the  harp  of  Deborah,  and  the  hand  of 
Barak  ;  when  the  storm  of  sleet  and  hail  burst  over 
the  Canaanites  in  the  great  battle  of  Beth-horon,  the 

*   "  Lectures  on  the  Jewish  Church,"  vol.  i.  pp.  41,  452. 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS.  51 

rains  descended,  the  winds  blew,  and  the  flood  and 
the  torrent  swept  them  avvay.  What  hero  in  un- 
inspired story  reaches  the  dimensions  of  Gideon,  the 
victor  over  Zebah  and  Zalmunnah  ?  The  shrill 
blast  of  those  trumpets,  the  crash  of  those  pitchers ! 
How  the  tradition  stirs  us  now  !  One  of  the  most 
glowing  and  glorious  enchantments  of  Hebrew 
poetry  is  its  nationality.  The  surge  of  Hebrew 
song  brought  on  every  wave  the  thought,  "  God 
is  with  us."  This,  in  all  ages,  gave  the  ecstasy  and 
the  passion  to  their  mighty  tones  of  triumph.  And 
how,  as  they  all  sang,  the  thought  of  the  God  who 
called  them,  and  sanctified  them,  gave  the  roll  and 
the  rush  of  melody  !  It  must  be  admitted,  there 
have  been  no  other  such  national  lyrics.  "  God 
save  the  Queen,"  and  "  Rule,  Britannia,"  awaken 
thrillings  and  tinglings  of  blood  and  soul  ;  but  they 
are  poor  affairs  compared  with  the  national  songs  of 
Judea  ;  and  in  our  national  songs  the  music  is  far 
finer  than  the  words.  We  have  never  set  our 
national  incident  to  music.  We  are  poor  in  patriotic 
songs.  Even  the  French,  perhaps,  exceed  us  in 
this  ;  and  TJie  Marseillaise  tingles  and  kindles  even 
more  than  "Ye  Mariners  of  England."  In  Judea  the 
national  history  was  well  known,  was  burnt  into  the 
hearts  of  the  people.  In  a  very  tame  way,  we  fancy, 
our  history  is  apprehended.  Thus,  for  instance,  the 
well-known,  perhaps  the  best  known,  naticnal  inci- 
dent, the  destruction  of  the  Armada, — the  Spanish 
Armada, — the  Invincible  Armada !  how  differently 
has  Macaulay  recited  the  story  from  the  way  in 
which  we  can  conceive  it  recited  by  some  ancient 
Hebrew    in    a    similar  instance.      Our    poet  dwells, 


52        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

indeed,  on  the  mustering  of  the  nation  ;  but  the 
true  poem  is  left  unsung.  We  have  the  gathering 
of  the  people,  not  the  scattering  of  the  foe.  There 
is  very  much  in  that  projected  invasion  which 
reminds  us  of  the  invasion  of  Israel  by  Sisera  ;  and 
many  of  the  words  of  that  glorious  song  of  Deborah 
might  well  befit  our  case.  It  is  quite  wonderful 
what  a  propensity  there  has  been  in  tyrants,  from 
time  immemorial,  to  reckon  their  chickens  before 
they  were  hatched,  as  the  mother  of  Sisera  sang, 
"  Have  they  not  sped  ?  have  they  not  divided  the 
prey  ;  to  every  man  a  damsel  or  two  ;  to  Sisera  a 
prey  of  divers  colours,  a  prey  of  divers  colours  of 
needlework,  of  divers  colours  of  needlework  on  both 
sides,  meet  for  the  necks  of  them  that  take  the  spoil.''" 
We  wonder  how  a  Hebrew  would  have  chanted  the 
story  of  those  much-misguided  asses  the  captains 
and  chief  governors  of  that  most  imperial  ass  that 
ever  was,  Philip  II.;  who  had  prepared  his  armada 
as  a  gorgeous  flotilla,  for  a  very  festival  of  con- 
quest ;  fitting  out  his  large  fleet  of  soldiers  and  in- 
quisitors, who  were  to  murder  and  to  make  havoc  in 
the  streets  of  London,  and  make  the  sack  of  Antwerp 
pale  !  Alas  !  they  calculated  badly.  All  London  was 
before  their  anxious  eyes.  There  were  velvet,  and 
gold,  and  baggage,  for  the  triumph  ;  lights  and 
torches  for  the  illumination,  when  London  should  be 
sacked.  Every  captain  had  received  some  gift  from 
the  prince  to  make  himself  brave  ;  and  lances  so 
gorgeous — 'twas  a  preparation  for  a  triumph,  not 
for  a  war.  And  then  came  tliat  night,  and  the  sob 
of  the  storm,  and  the  drip  of  the  mysterious  oars, 
and  the  devil-ships  of  Gianibelli,  and  the  flame,  and 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  53 

the  mist,  and  the  tempest  ;  and  so — but  we  know 
the  rest ;  only,  what  would  an  Israelite  have  said 
over  such  a  victory  ?  "  Thou  breakest  the  ships  of 
Tarshish  with  an  east  wind  !  " 

These  are  the  things  in  a  nation's  history  which 
make  a  people  look  up.  These  are  the  foundations 
of  national  pride  and  exultation.  It  is  possible, 
indeed,  that  in  many  a  lonely  Methodist  chapel,  in 
many  a  far-away  village  cottage,  the  sentiment,  God 
for  England,  is  felt  just  as  truly,  and  perhaps  as 
profoundly,  as  in  the  hearts  of  the  ancient  Hebrew. 
But  these  things  have  not  entered  into  the  texture 
of  our  national  poetry,  nor,  since  the  time  of  Isaac 
Watts,  into  our  sacred  service,  either  of  oratory  or 
of  hymn.  We  have  very  little  of  what  may  be 
called  national  poetry,  and  what  we  have,  does  not 
ring  with  the  grand  sentiment  of  "  God  is  with  us," 
the  perpetual  sentiment  of  Hebrewism.  Does  this 
arise,  as  some  have  said,  from  the  fact  that  Chris- 
tianity disclaims  patriotism  }  We  are  disposed  in 
part  to  admit  this — that  no  land  ever  has  been  nor 
ever  can  be  what  Palestine  was  to  the  Jew  ;  and 
hence,  too,  while  he  had  no  epic  poet,  everything  in 
his  land  became  epical,  and,  as  we  have  said  and 
seen,  all  things  of  institution  and  of  scenery  became 
greatly  representative. 

Our  history  has  incidents  as  glowing  and  marvel- 
lous ;  but  have  we  the  heart  of  the  ancient  Hebrew 
to  recite  the  story  >  Why,  it  is  in  the-  memory  ot 
men  living  now,  and  here,  how  Napoleon  the  First 
spread  his  mighty  camp  along  the  heights  ot 
Boulogne,  where  a  hundred  thousand  men  waited 
for  the  moment  when,  beneath  the  leadership  of  the 


54        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

First  Consul,  they  were  to  spring  on  England  ; 
those  preparations  were  vast,  and  fifty  thousand 
men  were  spread  along  the  coast  from  Brest  to 
Antwerp.  "  Let  us  be  masters  of  the  Channel," 
said  Napoleon,  "  for  six  hours,  and  we  are  masters 
of  the  world  !  "  Also  the  master  of  the  French  Mint 
received  orders  to  strike  a  medal  commemorating 
the  conquest — and  although  the  die  had  to  be 
broken,  there  were  three  copies  taken  ;  two  are  in 
France  and  one  in  England — the  Emperor  crowned 
with  laurel,  and  the  inscription  in  French,  "  London 
taken,  1804."  But  there  was  One  sitting  in  the 
heavens  who  laughed  :  the  Lord  had  them  in  derision. 
**  He  spoke  unto  them  in  His  wrath,  and  vexed  them 
in  His  sore  displeasure  ; "  for,  alas,  alas !  Admiral 
Latouche  Treville,  having  received  orders  to  put  to 
sea,  he  alone  knowing  the  destiny  of  the  fleet,  fell 
sick,  poor  man,  and  died  just  then  ;  and  there  was 
no  head  to  direct,  and  no  hand  to  strike,  and  the 
thing  had  to  be  postponed.  But  Napoleon,  Emperor 
Napoleon,  did  not  give  up  ;  in  1805  he  was  waiting 
still  in  Boulogne !  London  was  not  taken,  to  be 
sure,  in  1804,  but  it  might  be  in  1805.  He  climbed 
the  heights,  again  and  again,  and  waited  for  the 
junction  of  the  fleets  ;  but  he  strained  his  eyes  in 
vain  ;  his  admirals  blundered,  and  so  that  fleet 
which  was  to  have  taken  London,  while  Napoleon 
supposed  it  hastening  to  Brest,  was  flying  to  Cadiz, 
there  to  meet  with  Nelson  at  Trafalgar !  and  so, — 
in  fact,  Loudoti  zvas  not  taken  !  But  what  would  an 
ancient  Hebrew  have  said  .''  He  would  have  said, 
"  As  we  have  heard,  so  have  we  seen  !  "  "  God  is 
known   in    her    palaces  for  a  refuge.     For,  lo,  the 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  55 

kings  were  assembled,  they  passed  by  together. 
They  saw  it,  and  so  they  marvelled  ;  they  were 
troubled,  and  hasted  away  !  "  "  We  have  thought 
of  Thy  loving- kindness,  O  God,  in  the  midst  of  Thy 
temple !  "  He  would  have  sung  as  Deborah  sang, 
"  So  let  all  Thine  enemies  perish,  O  Lord  :  but  let 
them  that  love  Thee  be  as  the  sun  when  he  goeth 
forth  in  the  greatness  of  his  strength  !  " 

But  perhaps  we  seem  in  the  preceding  parentheses 
to  be  forgetting  that  the  text  of  the  present  chapter 
is,  the  instinct  for  souls  as  the  vocation  of  the 
preacher ;  but  it  is  yet  true  that  he  may  avail  him- 
self of  every  means  which  may  arouse  and  quicken 
a  soul  into  life.  The  pulpit  of  our  age  and  times 
must  minister  to  the  thoughtful.  This  can  only  be 
by  the  preacher  becoming  a  man  of  thought  and 
prayer — "  There  is  a  kind  that  goeth  not  forth  but 
by  prayer  and  fasting."  We  can  only  answer  the 
problems  of  the  soul  by  experience.  Experience  is 
the  truest  and  best  exposition  ;  this  will  give  the 
readings  of  many  a  text,  and  often  many  a  difficulty, 
and  only  so  will  our  auditors  feel  that  we  are  their 
teachers,  while  feeling  that  we  have  been  into  the 
furnace  and  the  difficulty  before  them. 

But  science  has  displaced  wonder  ;  there  is  no 
strange  place,  there  is  no  strange  thing,  everything 
and  every  spot  is  now  made  familiar  to  the  mind  ; 
hence  the  preacher's  difficulty  has  greatly  increased. 
Yet  he  still  has  to  meet  both  natures  in  man,  his 
understanding  and  his  faith.  We  notice  how  many 
preachers  permit  the  subtle  to  predominate  over  the 
practical  ;  they  fancy  that  in  this  they  satisfy  by 
entering  into  the  essential  reason   of  things  ;  on  the 


56        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

contrary,  in  others,  the  merely  practical  becomes 
turgid.  We  should  rise  to  ideal  views  of  all  truth. 
Is  it  not  true,  that  that  which  satisfies  the  under- 
standing, leaves,  in  fact,  the  whole  nature  unsatisfied  ; 
leaves  the  infinite  heights  and  breadths  in  which  the 
soul  may  sublimely  exercise  herself.'*  Let  us  rise  to 
the  ideal,  the  wing  in  the  cloud,  but  drop  in  harmony 
and  happiness,  refreshed,  to  earth  again.  We  would 
secure  belief ;  all  preaching,  to  be  successful,  must 
always  be  based  in  common-sense,  but  especially 
710W ;  let  us  begin  first  to  secure  belief  by  laying 
down  her  principles,  and  defining  and  showing  the 
reasonableness  of  her  grounds,  and  then  that  which 
we  call  rhetoric,  eloquence,  sets  the  logical  framework 
in  a  blaze.  This  is  just  the  image;  let  us  look  at  all 
the  arrangements  for  an  immense  magnificence  of 
fireworks  ;  all  those  sticks  are  arranged,  and,  most 
necessarily,  they  contain  all  the  combustibles  for  the 
display,  but  unignited  ;  but  the  fire  kindles,  and 
there,  and  then,  rush  forth  all  the  splendours  of  the 
many-coloured  flames.  A  rocket-stick  is  a  poor 
substitute  for  fireworks ;  true,  but  we  cannot  do 
without  the  stick  ;  it  is  a  pity  that  in  the  matter  of 
preaching  many  persons  mistake  the  stick  for  the 
rocket.  And  this  leads  to  another  remark :  we 
must,  in  this  day,  relate  together  the  theology  of  the 
intellect  and  the  theology  of  the  feelings.*  We 
must  do  homage  to  both  ;  all  things  demand  that 
we  do  homage  to  both  ;  it  has  been  well  said  that 


*  See,  upon  this  topic,  an  invaluable  essay  or  discourse  by 
Dr.  Edwards  Park  "  On  the  Theology  of  the  Intellect  and  the 
Feelings,"  reprinted  in  the  Eclectic  Review  for  1865  (January 
— February). 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  57 

the  sensitive  part  of  our  nature  quickens  the  percep- 
tive, the  theology  of  the  intellect  enlarges  and 
improves  that  of  the  feelings,  and  is  also  enlarged 
and  improved  by  it.  We  are  happy  to  think  that 
we  may  find  no  difficulty  in  using  as  ours,  language 
which  the  Holy  Book  and  the  holiest  hymnologists 
have  used  :  intensely  sensuous  ;  but  if  we  see  the 
law  it  represents,  if  we  recognise  and  understand 
such  expressions  in  the  spirit  that  prompted  them, 
even  in  the  spirit  of  the  schools,  we  shall  make  our 
meaning  felt,  John  Foster  has  well  said  that  "when 
a  man  prays  aright,  he  forgets  the  philosophy  of 
prayer,"  and  so  when  men  are  deeply  affected  in 
preaching,  they  very  likely  disturb  the  logical  pro- 
portions of  their  subject  ;  but  it  is  in  such  moments 
they  give  the  truest  impressions  of  it.  We  have 
little  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  finest  illustration 
of  this  inflamed  logic  is  Vinet. 

That  the  ministry  is  often  unsuccessful  is  to  be 
deplored,  and  it  should  be  remembered  that  many 
neighbourhoods  need  the  evangelist,  and  this  is  a 
character  of  ministry  which  may  need  some  special 
remark.  While  letters  and  papers  have  been  teem- 
ing from  all  denominational  organs  on  the  evangeli- 
sation of  our  rural  or  neglected  population,  we  have 
ourselves  become  aware  of  a  little  circumstance 
which  has  put  the  method  of  doing  the  desirable 
work  in  altogether  a  new  and  affecting  light.  In  a 
watering-place — ^^the  best  known,  most  frequented, 
and  most  densely  populated,  near  London — in  an 
outlying  district,  a  chapel,  a  mission  chapel,  was 
opened  by  the  united  services  of  Thomas  Binney 
and    Samuel    Morley,    the    ministrations    conducted 


58        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

since  by  the  ministers  of  the  town,  and,  especially, 
by  the  earnest,  indefatigable  work  of  a  local  lay 
labourer  ;  but,  unhappily,  on  one  Sabbath  the  place 
needed  a  supply,  and  there  was  a  necessity  for  falling 
back  upon  one,  and  that  one  of  the  very  best  known, 
of  our  colleges.  Our  friend,  the  local  lay  labourer, 
himself  a  man  of  very  clear  and  well-informed  intelli- 
gence among  books  as  well  as  men,  penetrated  into 
the  vestry,  and  behold  !  the  young  neophyte,  to  his 
undisguised  commingled  horror  and  amazement, 
draped,  and  swathed,  and  wrapped,  and  flowered  in 
all  the  adornment  of  gown,  cassock,  bands,  etc.,  etc. 
It  was  all  in  vain  that  our  friend  remonstrated  that 
a  gown  had  never  been  seen  in  the  building — that 
the  ministers  of  the  town,  who  wore  the  cloak  in 
their  own  temples,  left  "  their  cloak  at  Troas  "  when 
they  came  there  ;  the  young  brother  was  obstinate — 
it  was  vain  to  remind  him  that  the  people  might 
laugh  at  it,  that  they  were  a  poor  plain  race  of 
artisan  folk.  The  gown  was  an  essential  part  of 
his  individuality.  On  that  very  spot,  in  the  streets 
round  about,  something  more  than  mere  Ritualism 
was  seeking  to  pervade  and  leaven  all  things  ;  it 
was  argued  that  it  was  necessary  to  keep  perfect  the 
simplicity  of  the  service ;  it  was  all  vain, — the  service 
was  in  the  gown.  The  young  preacher  even  became 
affecting  as  he  declared  that  he  could  not  preach 
without  the  gown,  the  whole  virtue  of  the  business 
would  be  lost  without  the  gown,  and  in  that  pulpit, 
before  the  astonished  audience,  he  really  disported 
himself  in  that  fashion. 

The  incident  is,  we  are  half  afraid,  characteristic. 
This  little  notice  of  it  has  been  pressed  upon  us  by 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  59 

the  numerous  efforts  now  made  to  reach  the  ear  and 
the  heart  of  the  people.  We  are  afraid  that  this 
little  circumstance  indicates  often  the  principal 
barrier  in  the  way  of  success,  in  the  evangelisation 
and  conversion  of  the  people.  The  inst'nict  for  gowns 
is  greater  than  the  instinct  for  souls  ;  perfunctoriness 
is  death  to  vitality  ;  and  what  can  touch  so  living  a 
thing  as  a  soul,  save  life — a  living  soul  .<*  And 
how  is  England  to  be  evangelised  .-*  Has  anybody 
much  hope  of  it  }  It  seems  all  our  work  goes  to 
holding  fast  the  ground  we  say  we  have.  We  seem 
really  to  break  into  very  little  new  ground.  The 
saints  have  to  be  fed  ;  and  that  feeding-time  absorbs 
all  the  labour  and  thought  of  many  of  our  Churches 
and  ministers.  The  feeding-time  is  really  like  that 
in  the  Zoological  Gardens  ;  it  is  the  chief  thought 
and  object  of  attraction  ;  and  the  catching  of 
animals  from  the  desert,  and  training  "  lions  and 
beasts  of  savage  name,"  enters  as  little  really  into 
the  thought  of  nearly  all  the  Christians  we  know, 
ourselves  included,  as  the  catching  an  African  lion 
or  a  Bengal  tiger  enters  into  the  thought  of  the 
visitors  standing  before  the  cage  in  the  menagerie. 
This  being  "  fed  "  and  being  "  built"  is  often  death 
to  all  true  progress  and  life  amongst  us  ;  and  we 
greatly  fear  that  whatever  plans  may  be  devised  and 
adopted,  they  are  likely  to  fail,  because  they  do  not 
spring  from,  and  find  their  satisfaction  in  that 
instinct  for  souls.  For  instance,  of  what  avail  is  it 
to  lay  down  rules  and  programmes  to  guide  a  man 
or  men  in  the  achievements  of  great  ministerial 
work }  Churches  have  a  favourite  theory  that 
ministers  possess  an  order  of  piety  beyond  the  lay 


6o        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

members  of  the  Church,  and  they  test  their  theory  by 
trying  the  faith,  patience,  piety,  and  self-denial  of 
their  ministers  ;  while  their  own  little  slips  of  those 
"  plants  of  renown "  are  left,  for  the  most  part, 
uncultivated.  We  believe,  if  most  ministers  spoke 
honestly,  they  would  say,  "  That  which  we  preach  is 
a  faith  with  us.  We  believe  it  really,  but  we  don't 
believe  it  more  than  you.  You  call  for  extra- 
ordinary work  from  us  ;  we  really  have  it  not  to  give. 
We  mete  out  our  labours  as  best  we  may  ;  we  are 
not  pressed  upon  by  burning  desires  and  affections  ; 
nor  are  you.  A  decent,  orderly,  well-conditioned, 
decorous  faith  is  all  that  either  of  us  have.  It  is 
all  to  which  we  can  minister,  all  that  you  can 
appreciate."  Hence,  when,  to  a  temper  like  this, 
mighty  propositions  are  presented  about  the  worth 
of  souls  and  the  salvation  of  souls,  etc.,  the  lan- 
guage rises  altogether  above  the  knowledge,  or  the 
conception.  It  certainly  would  not  do  to  say,  "  This 
is  all  nonsense  ;  souls  are  of  no  value  ;  we  see  them 
plunging  out  into  the  great  night  that  lies  round 
this  world — by  millions,  everyday — we  don't  believe 
in  their  value — God  does  not  seem  to  care  about 
them!"  It  would  not  do  to  say  that  bold  audacious 
thing,  and  hence  men,  unable  to  perceive,  and  not  in 
earnest  themselves,  create  perfunctory  instrumen- 
talities, and  they  say  to  ministers,  "We  will  collect  a 
certain  quantity  of  money — you  go  and  do  the 
feeling,  the  believing,  the  loving,  and  the  praying." 
In  fact,  it  will  not  be  wrought  that  way.  Religious 
passion  must  bear  up  like  the  waters  of  the  great 
Geyser,  mountains  high,  boiling  from  the  deep 
central    spring;     and     woe    betide    the    pots,    pans. 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  6i 

kettles,  or  beefsteaks  {vide  "  Travels  in  Iceland ") 
that  stand  in  the  way  of  it !  Yet,  sometimes,  the 
Geyser  has  seemed  to  be  a  well-conducted,  well- 
behaved  little  thing,  and  travellers  have  boiled  and 
washed  over  its  bubblings  !  This  is  even  that  which 
many  of  us,  in  this  way,  have  done  by  our  com- 
mitteedoms,  etc.  We  have  used  that  great  Geyser, 
the  religious  instinct  in  man,  as  a  means  for  keeping 
our  pot  boiling,  and  almost  all  our  modern  designs 
about  religion  look  in  that  direction. 

"  Oh,  Clarkson,"  said  William  Wilberforce  to  his 
great  collaborateur,  when  he  called  upon  him  one 
Sabbath  morning,  and  found  him  sitting  before  his 
table,  which  was  covered  with  papers  about  eman- 
cipation and  slave-trade — "  Oh,  Clarkson,  do  you 
ever  think  about  your  soul  ? "  and  Clarkson  replied, 
"Wilberforce,  I  have  time  to  think  about  nothing 
now  but  these  poor  negroes."  The  irrepressible 
instinct  of  the  man,  the  Divinely  self-absorbed  un- 
selfishness of  the  man,  something  like  this  is  the  only 
power  which  will  tell  in  evangelistic  movements. 
We  do  not  know  how  to  do  that  which  we  desire  to 
do.  Protestantism  in  England  has  lost  the  art  of 
converting  souls.  Our  readers  and  friends  will  not 
suspect  us  of  Papal  bearings  and  tendencies  ;  but  it  is 
in  that  Church, — which  numbers,  assuredly,  holy, 
blessed,  and  devoted  men  among  its  members, — we 
must  look  for  illustrations  of  the  iiistinct  for  souls. 
Catholic  Home  Missions  are  very  successful.  It 
behoves  us  to  inquire, — Why,  and  how  }  What  are 
their  ways  and  means  ?  So  many  requirements  go 
to  success  in  such  labour ;  it  would  represent  a  power 
for  hard  work,  and  that  is   a   rare   faculty  ;   an   apti- 


62        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

tude  and  felicity  of  speech  ;  a  command  over  sharp, 
pointed  words  of  wisdom  ;  fertility  of  illustration,  to 
take  the  stand  on  the  village  green,  or  in  the  market- 
place ;  to  talk  like  a  gentleman,  so  that  the  man 
should  feel  the  presence  of  one  well  instructed,  and 
able  to  guide  ;  and  to  talk  like  a  brother,  so  that 
the  hearer  should  not  imagine  the  speaker  as  living 
in  one  room,  or  belonging  to  one  family,  while  he 
belonged  to  another  ;  and  what  would  be  the  use  of 
all  this  without  the  button-hole  power  ?  It  is  the 
coming  to  close  quarters  that  tries  the  stuff  in  a  man 
— the  ability  to  be  insulted  meekly,  and  to  get  the 
best  of  it,  that  is  a  rare  faculty — the  ability  to  let 
disputatious  and  grumbling  stupidity,  ignorance,  and 
infidelity  growl  or  talk  themselves  out,  and  then  to  slip 
a  word  boggling  them,  putting  things  in  a  new  light, 
so  that  they  feel  that  the  man  knows  more,  and  has 
thought  more  than  they  ;  and  then  what  is  the  use 
of  all  this,  unless  it  be  picked  up,  followed  up,  drawn 
and  coalesced  into  communities  ?  All  success  must 
depend  upon  fitness  and  adaptation,  and  the  chief 
thing  of  all  needed  would  be,  not  an  instinct  for 
thoughts,  nor  an  instinct  for  books,  nor  an  instinct 
for  aesthetics — all  these  would  hurt  and  hinder  the 
work  ;  there  must  be  chief,  and  before  all  else,  an 
instinct  for  souls.  And  what  would  that  represent  ? 
The  preacher  or  the  converser  would  feel  he  had  a 
piece  of  knowledge  real  to  himself  to  give  to  the 
people  before  him — the  people  would  become 
individualised  to  him  in  one  soul,  and  he  would  feel 
that  as  the  adding  of  one  chemical  to  another 
entirely  alters  the  quality  of  that  to  which  it  is  added, 
so  that  piece  of  knowledge  created  within  the  person 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  63 

to  whom  he  spoke  a  new  consciousness,  an  entirely 
different  perception  of  himself,  life,  and  all  his,  and 
its  relations.  Could  a  man,  feeling  this,  be  finick- 
ing about  his  instinct  for  gowns,  or  modes  of  speech? 
Would  not  the  thought  give  to  him  a  Divine 
abandonment  ?  Would  he  not  be,  as  Paul  said, 
beside  himself?  But  without  something  of  this  kind 
it  is  vain  to  think  that  people,  rural,  artisan,  labour- 
ing, plain,  poor  cottage  people,  who  have  not  been 
baked  into  ecclesiastical  shape  and  order,  are  to  be 
met.  We  have  a  morbid  horror  of  eccentricity,  and 
we  will  be  bound  to  pay  that  any  one  of  our 
brethren,  going  down  to  evangelise  a  rural  district, 
would  either  in  the  village  chapel,  or  on  the  village 
green,  give  out  a  well-approved  hymn,  sonorous,  long 
measure,  and  make  a  prayer, — a  kind  of  creed  or 
confession  of  faith  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  length, 
— and  then  deliver  a  sermon,  from  which  should 
studiously  be  eliminated  anything  that  could  create 
a  smile, — not  to  say  so  altogether  horrid  a  thing 
as  a  laugh, — every  touch  of  humanity  or  of  humour, 
almost  everything  that  could  convey  the  idea 
that  the  man  was  at  freedom  and  ease  in  his  work. 
Alas,  what  would  the  brothers  of  the  Oratory  say  to 
an  attempt  to  win  over  England  to  Popery  and 
Rome  conducted  after  this  fashion  ?  Truly  we  wish 
they  would  try  this  fashion,  instead  of  which  they 
try  the  method  of  the  Pauline  madness — "  beside 
themselves."  Snatches  of  profane  song  made 
sacred  ;  walking  to  and  fro  in  courts  and  alleys,  and 
out-of-the-way  nooks  ;  winning  by  a  strong  word, 
accompanied  with  a  kind  smile  ;  by  a  piercing, 
lightning-like  truth  conveyed  at  the  end  of  an  almost 


64        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

entertaining  anecdote;  and  so,  in  the  course  of  a  year 
or  two,  behold  a  church,  a  cathedral, — and  Rome 
flourishing  in  that  neighbourhood  !  This  goes  on 
while  we  twaddle  upon  committees,  and  read  minutes 
of  the  last  meeting,  and  get  out  our  reports,  and 
wonder  who  will  subscribe.  And  where  are  the 
reports  of  all  the  Roman  Catholic  affiliations  ? 
What  printer  prints  them  ?  Where  are  the  maga- 
zines that  glorify  them  ?  The  thing  rises  as  silently 
as  a  fog,  creeps  up  like  an  autumn  mist  over  the 
whole  landscape,  never  says,  "I'm  coming,"  only  says, 
"I'm  here!"  Gentlemen  who  are  interested  in  these 
matters, — as  who  with  a  Christian  heart  is  not  inter- 
ested ? — would  do  very  well  to  read  the  late  Father 
Faber's  "Essay  on  Catholic  Home  Missions."  It 
would  seem  that  Romanism,  too,  has  its  members  to 
whom  these  things  would  be  simply  disgusting  ;  to 
whom  graceful  cowls,  and  matin  bells,  and  vesper 
chimes,  and  swelling  chants,  and  swinging  lamps,  and 
stern  old  crusaders'  tombs,  and  all  the  poetry  of  reli- 
gion, are  most  attractive.  There  are  members  of  that 
Church,  as  of  our  own,  who  would  look  with  contempt 
if  they  met  the  Church  upon  the  road,  out  of  breath, 
pursuing  souls,  with  bleeding  feet,  hands  rough  and 
chapped,  and  perspiration  streaming  from  her  brow. 
In  all  bodies  there  are  those  who  prefer  the  elegant 
to  the  prophetic  in  religious  matters,  but  these  have 
not  the  instinct  for  souls. 

Father  Faber  carries  our  principle  to  an  extreme; 
in  this  he  illustrates  Rome.  Wisdom  should  be 
justified  of  her  children,  and  wisdom  may  be.  We 
are  not  fastidious  ourselves,  and  we  are  persuaded, 
that   those   in  whom   is   unfolding   the   instinct   for 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS.  65 


souls  will  not  be  fastidious.  We  must  recollect 
that  we  approach  sinners,  all  of  whom  are  about 
an  equal  mixture  of  savage  and  child.  How  ridicu- 
lous the  method  which  should  deal  with  them 
as  scholars,  or,  in  the  highest  sense,  as  men.  It 
was  Saint  Carlo  Borromeo — a  great  example  for 
us  all — every  way  a  Cardinal,  but  also  a  great 
Sunday-school  teacher, — perhaps  the  first  of  Sunday- 
school  teachers — a  beautiful  and  blessed  labourer 
among  the  poor, — who  said  : — "  A  parish  priest 
should  be  like  a  French  milliner,  always  bringing 
out  new  modes,  in  order  to  keep  up  the  interest, 
and  stimulate  a  languishing  taste."  Why  not  } 
This  is  the  use  of  excitement.  The  Roman  Catholic 
Church  acts  upon  the  principle  of  periodical  missions 
and  excitements  ;  feels  that  every  Church  needs 
an  occasional  visit  from  a  mission  to  reawaken 
its  energies.  We  want  new  modes  for  ourselves 
now,  and  without  them,  and  a  fresh  and  free  soul 
able  to  use  them,  it  will  be  quite  vain  to  think 
of  being  useful  in  visits  of  evangelisation.  One 
thing  must  pre-eminently  be  borne  in  mind,  as 
that  which  alone  will  make  us  successful,  that 
we  follow  the  instinct  for  souls.  Ecclesiastical 
polities,  and  the  like,  will  come  after,  if  they  come 
at  all.  It  is  neither  an  instinct  for  a  creed, 
nor  an  instinct  for  an  ecclesiasticism,  which  we 
must  follow  to  be  successful  in  this  work.  It 
really  seems  to  us  that  we  have  done  our  best 
to  kill  the  religious  instinct ;  a  fervent  conviction 
dare  scarcely  show  itself;  it  is  instantly  called 
to  order  ;  our  feelings  are  made  to  order  too, 
our   eloquence   cut   out   after   a   pattern.       We  are 

5 


66        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER 

afraid  of  individualism.  We  must  label  ourselves 
sect  fashion.  We  have  innumerable  little  crotchets, 
and  if  the  working  of  these  be  interfered  with, 
we  walk  off,  talk  nonsense  about  our  religious 
liberty,  which,-for  the  most  part,  means  determination 
at  all  hazards  to  have  our  own  way.  We  shelve 
our  responsibilities  in  the  cupboards  and  desks 
of  committee  rooms  ;  an  awkward,  plain-spoken 
infidel  tells  us  we  don't  love  souls,  etc.,  and  we 
point  him  to  our  .lame  down  for  a  guinea  in 
the  report  of  the  Circumlocution  Society.  We 
estimate  all  Divine  things  after  a  money  standard — 
not  that  we  contribute  so  much  as  sects,  after  all — 
even  here  we  do  not  test  our  own  resou^-ces  ; 
and  meantime,  in  the  depths,  and  on  the  fiinges 
of  the  forest  land  of  our  country,  on  the  wastes 
of  moors,  in  out-of-the-way  hamlets,  in  villages, 
there  are  men  and  women,  it  is  well  known,  growing 
up  who  know  no  more  of  Christ  and  His  salvation 
than  their  cows  and  pigs  do.  To  meet  this,  it  will 
be  of  no  use  thinking  of  any  usefulness  without 
such  a  baptism  in  the  worker  as  shall  really  be 
equivalent  to  the  creation,  and  calling  into  existence, 
of  a  new  instinct.  Our  readers  are  doubtless 
acquainted  with  a  little  volume  called  "  Strange 
Tales,"  by  John  Ashworth.*  It  is  a  marvellous 
little  book.  It  is  a  wonderful  home  missionary 
report.  It  is  the  recitation  of  the  work  which 
we  believe  has  to  be  done,  and  the  way  in  which 
it  ought  to  be  done.  John  Ashworth  realised  what 
we  have  meant  all  along  by  this  instinct  for  souls — 

*  "  Strange  Tales  from  Humble  Life."     By  John  Ashworth. 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS.  67 

that  love  for  immortal  mankind,  and  belief  that 
we  have  the  power  to  reach  it,  and  to  do  it  good, 
which  overwhelms  all  obstacles,  and  bears  down 
all  before  it.  It  is  really  the  story  of  the  life, 
walk,  and  triumph  of  faith.  Thus,  a  simple  man 
set  to  work, — a  plain,  working-day  sort  of  man  ; — 
met  with  laughter  and  contempt  from  the  people 
who  do  salvation  by  committees,  and  so,  after 
waiting  a  while,  set  to  work  himself,  opened  his 
chapel  for  the  destitute,  following  meantime  his  own 
trade,  expecting  to  make  no  worldly  gain  out  of 
his  labour  of  love  ;  and  continued  to  hold  and 
to  fulfil  all  his  offices  and  duties,  as  a  layman, 
in  the   Church  to  which  he  belonged. 

We  depreciate  no  means  for  effecting  an  entrance 
into  souls.  The  man  bathed  in  power,  all  his 
faculties  alive,  and  on  the  stretch  with  the  intensest 
ardours  of  poetry  and  argument, — the  massive  man, 
using  his  words  like  projectiles,  or  weapons  derived 
from  some  great  arsenal,  for  assaulting  the  inmost 
recesses  and  sophistries  of  the  intelligence ;  even 
the  neat  and  fastidiously  careful  man,  who  wraps 
up  his  feelings  in  small  sentences,  and  polishes 
away  all  the  angles  of  expression  ; — the  hesitating, 
clumsy,  but  scholarly  man,  who  feels  that  he  only 
fulfils  himself  as  he  enters  the  neighbourhood  of 
scholars  ; — for  all  these  men,  in  the  degree  in 
which  the  instinct  for  souls  is  stirred  within  them, 
we  have  veneration  and  affection.  But  John  Ash- 
worth  will  be  the  best  type  of  man  for  the  evan- 
gelist ;  especially  there  is  a  great  deal  of  work 
best  done  as  the  "  saints "  and  "  serious "  people 
keep  out  of  the  way.      Their  criticisms,  and  remarks, 


68        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

and  physiognomies  are  very  often  not  a  help  to 
a  man,  but  a  great  hindrance.  We  would  have  all 
these  things  pondered,  in  efforts  made  at  teaching 
either  artisans  in  towns,  or  labourers  in  villages. 
The  principal  interest  of  Congregationalism  in  this 
matter  is,  that  Congregationalism  alone,  for  the  most 
part,  can  effect  it.  We  want  a  band  of  men,  gifted 
with  a  free  spirit,  able  to  preach  with  a  gown, 
or  without  a  gown — able  to  use  a  liturgy,  or 
to  let  it  alone,  without  detriment  to  their  devotion — 
able  to  pitch  a  tune  themselves,  and  carry  a  con- 
gregation aloft  upon  the  wings  of  it,  or  to  yield 
themselves,  with  as  much  pleasure,  to  the  subduing 
powers  of  an  organ  or  a  choir.  The  Church  of 
England  mode  of  conversion,  as  we  very  well  know, 
proceeds  upon  the  assumption  of  the  young  brother 
who  happily  furnished  us  with  our  text — it  must 
be  done  in  chasuble  or  gown  and  bands  ; — the  prin- 
cipal feature  of  Congregationalism,  to  our  mind, 
is,  that  it  is  versus  sacerdotalism. 

There  are  two  chief  foes  to  the  religious  life 
in  England  everywhere, — indifference  is  one  ;  sacer- 
dotalism, which  is  an  easy  lapse  from  indifferentism, 
is  the  other.  Congregationalism  is  the  corrective 
for  both ;  it  is  the  corrective  for  indifference,  for 
it  strikes  at  the  individual  conscience  ;  it  is  a 
corrective  for  sacerdotalism,  for  it  places  man  above 
all  dependence  upon  sacraments  and  forms  ;  but 
then  it  is  necessary  that  the  spirit  of  the  instructor 
shall  be  itself  charged  with  the  life  he  aims  to 
convey.  Where  the  ministry  of  the  word  is  not 
an  instinct,  it  will  be,  as  it  was  promised  Jerusalem 
should  be,   "a   burdensome   stone."      Even   at  the 


IHE  INSTINCT  FOR  SOULS.  69 

best,  how  difficult  it  is  to  bear  up  the  spirit  in 
the  midst  of  bodily  depression,  and  weariness,  the 
captiousness  of  a  diseased  thirst,  and  morbid 
curiosity,  the  fainting  of  the  spirit  before  the  un- 
faithfulness, and  sometimes  the  treachery  of  friends  ; 
all  these  difficulties  have  to  be  thought  of,  for  they 
have  to  be  encountered  ;  but  these  trials  will  be 
greater  still  when  there  is  a  demand  for  large 
resources  of  bodily  strength,  the  call  upon  nervous 
energy  for  repeated  visitation,  and  constant  conversa- 
tion, where  conversation  is  to  be  a  reality.  Most 
persons  hope  to  get  through  life  with  ease  some  day. 
This  the  true-hearted  minister  can  never  hope  to  do  ; 
to  him  his  work  must  always  be  toilsome  and 
anxious,  for  ever  haunted  by  the  instinct  for  souls  ; 
his  very  ground  of  anxiety  not  comprehended, 
perhaps,  by  even  his  friends  around  him  ; — regarded 
as  a  mystical  vagary,  a  half-diseased  dream  ;  fearful 
of  himself,  fearful  for  others,  impelled  and  moved 
by  a  restlessness  caused  by  that  brooding  Spirit 
which  of  old  hovered  over  the  face  of  the  deep. 
When  we  think  of  all  these  things,  v/e  confess 
we  do  not  hope  great  things  from  any  mere  new 
effort ;  rather  must  we  use,  as  best  we  can,  the 
very  poor,  inadequate,  and  incompetent  machinery 
we  can  command.  Perhaps  God  may  have  some 
resources  of  great  men, — strong  instinctive  souls, 
—  yet  ;  who  knows  ?  But,  certainly,  in  the  light 
of  our  modern  poverty  in  all  the  great  things  of 
soul,  we  may  express  our  hopelessness  "  till  the 
Spirit  be  poured  out  from  on  high,  and  the  wilder- 
ness be  a  fruitful  field,  and  the  fruitful  field  be 
counted   for   a    forest.      Then  judgment  shall  dwell 


70        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


in  the  wilderness,  and  righteousness  remain  in  the 
fruitful  field." 

But,  if  Christ  be  the  great  power  of  God,  it 
is  clear  that  preaching  will  be  power  as  He  is  in  it. 
Hence  we  shall  have  to  notice  how  different,  how 
infinitely  different,  the  influence  and  the  effect  of 
controversy  in  the  pulpit  from  that  of  conscience. 
Polemics  have,  we  believe,  never,  or  but  seldom,  been 
power. 

We  have  heard  how,  once  upon  a  time,  the 
Christian  faith  heard  of  the  threatening  and  for- 
m.idable  incursions  of  her  foes  ;  so  she  determined 
to  muster  her  preachers  and  teachers  to  review  their 
weapons,  and  she  found,  beyond  all  her  expectations, 
everything  prepared.  There  was,  namely,  a  vast 
host  of  armed  men  ;  strong,  threatening  forms, 
weapons,  which  they  exercised  admirably,  brightly 
flashing  from  afar.  But  as  she  came  nearer  she 
sank  almost  into  a  swoon  ;  what  she  had  thought 
iron  and  steel  were  toys  ;  the  swords  were  made 
of  the  mere  lead  of  words  ;  the  breastplate,  of  the 
soft  linen  of  pleasure  ;  the  helmet,  of  the  wax 
of  plumed  vanity ;  the  shields,  of  papyrus  scrolled 
over  with  opinions  ;  the  spears,  thin  reeds  of  weak 
conjecture ;  the  colours,  spiders'  webs  of  philosophical 
systems  ;  the  cannon,  Indian  reed  ;  the  powder, 
poppy-seeds ;  the  balls,  of  glass !  Through  the 
indolent  neglect  of  their  leaders,  they  had  sold 
her  true  weapons,  and  had  introduced  these  ;  nay, 
they  even  made  her  former  warriors, — whose  armour, 
faithfulness, and  strength, were  proved, — contemptible; 
bitterly  did  Religion  weep,  but  the  whole  assembly 
bid  her  be  of  good  cheer  ;   they  would  show  their 


THE  INSTINCT  FOR   SOULS.  71 

faith  to  the  last  breath,  "  What  avails  me,"  she 
cried,  "  your  faith,  since  your  actions  are  worthless  ? 
Of  old,  when  I  led  naked,  unarmed  combatants 
to  the  field,  one  martyr,  one  warrior,  faithful  to 
death,  was  worth  more  to  me  than  a  hundred  of 
you   in   your   gilded   and   silvered   panoplies."  * 

*  Quoted  from  "  Historical  Inquiry  into  the  Theology  of 
Germany."     By  E.  B.  Pusey,  M.A.,  1830. 

Note. — This  chapter  is,  for  the  most  part,  reprinted  from 
' '  Lamps,  Pitchers,  and  Trumpets,"  published  1868.  Since  then, 
in  many  movements,  the  enthusiasm  called  for  in  the  chapter 
has  manifested  itself  in  many  varied  missions  ;  but  the  prin- 
ciples it  maintains  are  demanded  as  imperatively  as  ever. 


CHAPTER    III. 

FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER,  THE  PREACHER 
OF  THE  ORATORY  AND  THE  CLOISTER. 

VERY  great  is  the  distance  we  seem  to  have  to 
overleap  between  the  strict  and  unadorned 
Nonconformist  preacher,  in  his  own  simple  place  of 
worship,  leading  on  a  service  without  organ,  or 
choir,  or  vestments  of  any  kind,  and  the  subject  of 
our  present  sketch,  sometime  a  minister  of  the 
Church  of  England,  rector  of  Elton,  in  Huntingdon- 
shire, but  far  better  known,  after  his  conversion  to 
Romanism,  as  priest  of  the  Oratory  of  St.  Philip 
Neri.  With  his  conversion  we  have  nothing  here  to 
do  ;  we  may  express  our  regret  that  he  found  his 
resting-place  in  Rome,  but  in  these  pages  we  shall 
only  concern  ourselves  with  his  method  as  a  teacher 
and  preacher,  an  aspect  of  his  character,  we  believe, 
very  slightly  known  beyond  his  own  Church;  although 
some  of  his  hymns,  such  as  "  Dear  Saviour,  bless  us 
ere  we  go,"  "  Angels  of  Jesus,"  etc.,  etc ,  have  found 
acceptance  with  most  Churches.  As  a  Christian 
poet  he  stands  among  the  most  eminent  of  our 
times,  but  we  shall  remark  upon  him  only  as  a 
Christian    preacher.      The     notes    of   his    sermons, 


FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER.  y^ 

published  since  his  death,  in  two  volumes,*  abun- 
dantly show  that  the  long  succession  of  devotional 
volumes  which,  year  by  year,  proceeded  from  his  pen, 
were  the  expansion  of  his  exercises  in  the  pulpit. 
Of  course,  they  are  not  only  full  of  the  tenets  of 
Romanism,  but  they  are,  as  we  regard  them,  tainted 
with  the  most  objectionable  peculiarities  of  extremest 
ultramontanism, —  immaculate  conception,  papal  in- 
fallibility, and  so  on  ;  yet  if  freshness  be  beautiful,  if 
the  most  glowing  and  ardent  devotion  be  beautiful, 
if  it  be  delightful  to  find  the  most  fervid  imagination 
adorning  Divinest  truth,  and  the  human  reason 
reverently  piercing  into  the  subtlest  principles  of 
nature  and  revelation,  and  a  mystical  halo  shedding 
its  transcendental  lights  over  all,  we  suppose  our 
readers  will  be  pleased  to  have  their  attention 
directed  to  these  volumes,  which  have  been  for 
many  years  very  precious  to  us.  We  have,  of  course, 
often  in  reading  been  compelled  to  separate  the 
precious  from  the  vile,  what  we  have  regarded  as  the 
narrow,  the  little,  and  the  low,  from  the  broad,  the 
exalted,  and  the  noble  ;  but  still,  among  the  religious 
books  of  our  time, — what  we  may  call  the  sermon 
literature, — we  know  of  few  from  which  we  have 
derived  more  edification  and  delight  than  from  these 
volumes  of  Frederick  Faber's.  We  give  a  list  at  the 
foot  of  the  page.*!* 


*  "  Notes  on  Doctrinal  and  Spiritual  Subjects."  By  the  late 
Frederick  W.  Faber,  D.D.,  etc.,  etc.  Vol.  I.  Mysteries  and 
Festivals;  Vol.  II.  The  Faith  and  the  Spiritual  Life.  Thomas 
Richardson  and  Son. 

t  I.  "  All  for  Jesus  ;  or,  The  Easy  Ways  of  Divine  Love." 
By  F.  W.  Faber,  D.D.,  etc.,  etc. 


74        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

It  may  almost  seem  that  we  are  scarcely  in  a 
position  to  speak  of  this  manifold  teacher,  for  we 
have  never  either  heard  him  preach  or  even  seen 
him  ;  our  ideas  of  him  therefore  must  be  gathered 
from  his  works  and  his  life  ;  *  and  certainly  his 
labours,  even  through  the  press,  not  only  seem  most 
manifold  and  various,  but  they  present  such  a  vitality 
and  vigour  that  teachers  of  any  denomination  may 
read  them  with  edification,  and  use  them  with 
amazing  advantage.  Perhaps  the  conscientious 
Romish  priest  has  an  unfair  advantage  over  other 
teachers.  It  seems  as  if  he  is  "  not  in  trouble  as 
other  men  ;  "  he  has  quite  renounced  the  anxieties 
and  the  cares  of  the  citizen,  the  husband,  and  the 
father  ;  it  almost  seems  as  if  he  can  never  know 
the  burden  of  a  broken  heart,  the  agony  of  frustrated 
affections  ;  thus  possibly  it  is,  and  the  life  of  pleasant 
unbroken  loneliness  has  always  apparently  made 
it  more  easy  to  the  Catholic  priest  to  preach.  There 
are  those  who  find  it  a  difficult  thing  to  preach  one 
or  two  sermons  a  week  ;  very  often  the  Romish 
priest,    or  father,  preaches  day  by  day,  his  sermons 

2.  "  Growth  in  Holiness  ;  or,  The  Progress  of  the  Spiritual 
Life."     By  F.  W.  Faber,  D.D. 

3.  "Spiritual  Conferences."     By  F.  W.  Faber,  D.D, 

4.  "  Bethlehem."     By  F.  W.  Faber,  D.D. 

5.  "The  Creature   and  the  Creator;  or,  The  Wonders   of 
Divine  Love."     By  F.  W.  Faber,  D.D. 

6.  "The  Precious  Blood;  or,  The  Price  of  our  Salvation." 
By  F.  W.  Faber,  D.D. 

7.  "The  Blessed  Sacrament;  or.  The  Works  and  Ways  of 
God."     By  F.  W.  Faber,  D.D. 

8.  "  The  Foot  of  the  Cross  ;  or,  The  Sorrows  of  Mary."     By 
F.  W.  Faber,  D.D. 

*  "  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Frederick  William  Faber."     By 
John  Edward  Bowden.     Thomas  Richardson  and  Son. 


FREDERICK   WILLIAM  FABER.  75 

not  so  studious,  so  lengthy,  so  elaborate,  but  the 
outflashings,  or  the  outbreathings  of  the  mind,  or 
heart,  always  at  home  in  itself,  haunted  by  heaven, 
by  Christ,  and  the  ordinances  of  the  Church,  in  its 
isolation  and  loneliness.  The  Romish  Church  makes 
far  less  of  preaching  than  the  Protestant  Church  ;  as, 
hitherto,  the  Protestant  Church  has  far  too  much 
made  preaching  first,  so  with  the  Romish  Church  it 
has  been  quite  the  last,  least,  and  lowest  of  its 
exercises,  scarcely  an  ordinance  of  the  Church  at  all  ; 
yet  it  is  very  singular  and  noticeable  how  a  man, 
living  quite  by  himself,  and  in  himself,  will  become 
an  acute  observer,  and  when  such  a  man  preaches, 
these  observations  shoot  off  in  sharp  angles  of  quaint 
and  striking  expression.  Such  was  the  life,  and 
such  the  mind  of  Frederick  Faber.  It  rejoiced  in 
the  richest,  the  most  delightful  fancies  :  his  pages 
frequently  glow  and  overflow,  and  are  quite  suffused 
with  fanciful  and  imaginative  lights  ;  and  then  we 
are  presently  struck  by  some  most  real  and  prosaic 
expression,  as  if  the  monk  lived  ever  among  men, 
and  watched,  with  a  keen,  but  always  kindly  eye, 
their  walkings  and  their  ways. 

In  the  modern  pulpit,  what  may  be  called  the 
merely  practical  has  slain  the  preacher  and  chilled 
his  audience.  Range  over  the  multitudes  of  sermons 
which  teem  from  the  press  ;  are  we  not  amazed  at 
the  absence  of  great,  vast,  infinite  views  of  things  ? 
An  attempt  seems  often  to  be  made  to  keep  what 
may  be  called  the  infinite  out  of  sight ;  the  things 
of  religion  are  shrivelled  and  pared  down  to  the 
commonplace.  Now  this  has  often  been  a  very 
conscientious  procedure  on  the    part  of  preachers ; 


76        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

but  it  has  mistaken  its  end  :  men  should  be  trained 
to  take  great  and  lofty  views  of  truth, — to  enlarge 
the  dimensions  of  their  understanding.  Fabcr  dealt 
with  the  most  awful  and  infinite  subjects,  but  so 
popularly  and  simply  that  all  his  sermons  seem  to 
unite  the  most  mystical  views  of  eternal  things  with 
the  sharpest  and  the  most  intense  appeals  to  the 
conscience.  He  does  not  parley  with  the  conscience, 
his  words  most  frequently  beat  right  on  it ;  he  does 
not  stay  to  reason,  he  takes  very  much  for  granted  ; 
he  supposes  his  hearers  either  to  be  professing  Chris- 
tians, or  to  be  favourably  inclined  to  Divine  truth, 
and  he  sets  to  work  immediately  to  invade  and  take 
possession  of  the  citadel  of  the  soul. 

The  entire  teaching  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
is  more  mystical  than  ours ;  it  is  natural  that  it 
should  be  so,  from  its  whole  train  of  faith  and  service. 
Frederick  Faber,  however,  belongs  to  the  more 
eminently  mystical  order  ;  a  wide  distance  separates 
between  him  and  such  preachers  as  Lacordaire,  or 
Newman,  or  Manning;  he  selects  topics  for  discourse 
infinitely  awful  and  interesting,  subjects  which  invite 
a  close  survey,  a  deep  and  searching  analysis.  But 
this  cannot  be  said  of  the  method  he  adopts  ;  had  it 
been  so,  we  should  not  have  found  his  works  passing 
through  innumerable  editions,  and  incessantly  selling, 
as  they  do.  No,  from  some  seminal  principle,  he 
strikes  up  rather  than  down,  and  wraps  round  his 
subject  the  beautiful  vesture  of  flower  and  fruit,  the 
fanciful  and  splendid  imagery  of  colour  and  form. 
He  expatiates ;  he  diffuses  himself  over  his  idea 
rather  than  examines  the  roots  ;  in  a  word,  highly 
cultivated,  observant,  thoughtful,  with  an  eye  for  the 


FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER.  77 

things  of  his  time,  and  a  knowledge  of  the  results  of 
books,  he  is  an  eminently  popular  preacher,  a  preacher 
before  whom  we  feel  sure  we  could  do  nothing 
else  than  listen.  But  he  is  mystical,  we  said,  that 
is,  in  him  feeling  is  the  guiding  light.  No  word  is 
more  unsatisfactory  than  this  same  word,  "mystical;" 
it  is  by  no  means  easy  to  define  its  limits  ;  every 
man  who,  in  the  slightest  degree,  believes  in,  and 
apprehends  the  supernatural  is,  to  that  measure,  a 
mystic  ;  and  if  we  define  the  mystic  to  be  the  man 
who  apprehends  the  supernatural  through  the  medium 
of  the  imagination  and  the  emotions,  rather  than 
through  the  intellect,  this  again  very  inadequately 
defines  the  character.  It  must  be  sufficient  for  us, 
however,  at  present.  This  constitutes  the  mystical 
in  Frederick  Faber.  Give  him  some  faint  filament 
of  an  idea,  some  fibreless  gossamer,  and  it  is  astonish- 
ing what  he  will  do  with  it  ;  the  projecting  and 
creative  power  Avithin  pierces  far,  and  calls  up 
obedient  hosts  of  ideas  to  illustrate  his  thought. 
The  preacher  often  seems  to  diffuse  too  much, 
probably  from  a  cause  he  has  himself  mentioned, 
when  he  says  :  **  We  cannot  describe  such  things  ; 
there  is  always  something  of  a  literary  weariness  in 
writing  of  these  things  of  God  ;  epithet  must  be 
piled  on  epithet,  like  Pelion  on  Ossa  ;  adverb  must 
qualify  adjective,  or  intensify  substantive,  to  distin- 
guish between  the  manner  in  which  what  is  said  of 
creatures  may  also  be  said  of  God  ;  reiterated  super- 
latives annoy  the  taste  and  tease  the  attention,  and 
yet  how  dare  we  write  otherwise  than  superlatively 
of  God  ? " 

Effect   in  the  pulpit  is  a  very  loose  and  varied 


78        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

thing,  and  many  speak  of  it  scarcely  knowing  what 
they  mean  by  it  ;  we  have  seen  that  effect,  very 
frequently,  results  from  admirable  symmetry,  from 
art,  and  arrangement  ;  nothing  of  this  is  visible  in 
anything  we  have  from  the  tongue,  or  pen  of 
Frederick  Faber,  nothing  of  what  we  should  call 
the  logician,  the  artist,  or  the  rhetorician  ;  his  mind 
is  full  of  thoughts,  his  heart  of  feelings  and  impulses, 
"  his  tongue  is  as  the  pen  of  a  ready  writer  ; "  but 
the  thoughts  flow  forth  with  little  plan,  and  the 
reader — and  we  apprehend  the  hearer — would  be 
sometimes  in  danger  of  almost  missing  the  chief 
intention  in  some  charming  allusion.  An  extract  or 
two  may  show  at  once  the  beauty  and  the  danger  to 
which  we  allude. 

ALL   SOULS    HAVE   A   CALL   OF   GOD. — LISTEN  I 

"  All  spiritual  souls  are  thus  haunted  souls.  They  see 
sights  which  others  do  not  see,  and  hear  sounds  which 
Others  do  not  hear.  This  haunting  is  to  them  their  own 
secret  prophecy  of  heaven.  It  would  be  sad  to  miss  so 
choice  a  grace  by  inattention,  sadder  still  to  follow  a 
fantastic  delusion  of  earth  instead  of  the  heavenly  reality. 
The  soul  cannot  hear  God  unless  it  listens  for  Him,  and 
listening  is  the  devoutest  attitude  of  a  wise  and  loving  soul. 
Yet  they  who  listen  hear  many  sounds  which  others  do  not 
hear,  many  sounds  for  which  they  themselves  are  never 
listening.  There  are  false  sounds  on  earth,  which  have  a 
trick  of  heaven  in  them.  They  are  Hke  the  phantom  bells 
which  ring  for  vespers,  as  from  viewless  convents,  in  the 
wilderness  of  Zin.  Yet  the  Bedouin  deems  that,  with  his 
practised  ear,  he  can  discern  their  thin  tolling  from  the 
real  sounds  of  the  sandy  solitude.  The  avoiding  of  delusion 
is  not  the  whole  of  safety  in  the  spiritual  life.     When  a  man 


FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER.  79 

turns  his  entire  life  into  a  cautious  self-defence  against 
imposture,  he  is  leading,  perhaps,  the  falsest  life  a  man  can 
lead.  There  is  more  danger  in  missing  a  grace  from  God, 
than  in  mistaking  an  earthly  beckoning  for  a  Divine.  For,  in 
the  last  case,  purity  of  intention  soon  rectifies  the  error, 
while,  in  the  other,  the  loss  is  for  the  most  part  irretrievable. 
Even  in  the  natural  life,  and  in  the  spiritual  life  much  more, 
they  are  the  most  unfortunate  of  men  who  linger  behind 
their  lot.  They  are  hke  those  who  linger  behind  the  desert 
caravan.  Straightway,  as  Marco  Polo  tells  us,  a  shadowy 
voice  calls  them  by  their  name,  and  allures  them  to  one  side 
of  their  route.  They  follow,  and  still  it  calls ;  and,  when 
they  have  wandered  from  the  path,  a  mocking  silence 
follows,  more  terrible  than  the  deceiving  voice.  The  wind 
of  evening  has  lifted  the  light  sands,  and  quietly  effaced  the 
marks  of  feet  and  camel  hoofs  upon  the  wilderness,  as  the 
breeze  ruffles  out  the  v,rakes  of  ships  on  the  yielding  deep, 
and  smoothes  the  waters  by  its  ruffling.  They  have  missed 
their  vocation.  It  is  no  use  their  living  now.  They  might 
as  well  lie  down  and  die.  Such  are  they  vvho,  in  the 
spiritual  life,  linger  behind  their  grace.  They  of  all  men 
are  the  most  haunted  by  delusions,  and  have  the  least 
discernment  by  which  to  tell  them  from  realities.  A  soul, 
that  has  let  grace  outstrip  it,  will  never  see  its  caravan  again. 
It  may  die  with  God  ;  for  God  is  in  the  wilderness ;  but 
faint  indeed  is  the  chance  of  its  not  dying  in  the  wilderness. 
Let  each  man  look  well  to  see  if  he  has  not  within  himself  a 
leading  from  God ;  and  if  he  has,  let  him  know  that  it  is  his 
one  saving  thing  to  follow  it." 

This  is  a  tremendous  and  terrible  piece  of  writing, 
but  we  are  afraid  to  say  in  how  many  instances  we 
have  remarked  its  truth. 

We  spoke  of  the  sharp  sentences  and  aphorisms 
which    abound  in  these  works  and  sermons,  words 


So        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

pithy  and  pleasant  to  remember  ;  we  should  like  to 
present  our  readers  with  a  few. 

'*  Silence  makes  us  great-hearted,  and  judging  makes  us 
little-minded." 

"  Life  is  broader  than  any  science  of  life." 

"  Christ  is  living  endlessly  over  again ;  there  are  a 
thousand  Bethlehems,  a  thousand  Nazareths,  and  a 
thousand  Calvaries  scattered  through  the  Church.  Pales- 
tine has  swelled  out  into  a  world  ;  all  shrines  of  human 
sorrow  are  Gethsemanes." 

The  Thought  of  God.  "There  is  more  light  in  the  indis- 
tinctness of  that,  than  in  the  clearest  demonstrations  of 
human  science." 

The  Value  of  Logic  in  Religion.  "The  definitions  of  the 
faith  only  catch  us  as  we  fall." 

Sorrow.  "  Sorrow  is  the  substance  of  man's  natural  life, 
and  it  might  almost  be  defined  to  be  his  natural  capability  of 
the  supernatural ;  nothing  has  a  lasting  interest  for  man 
which  is  not  in  some  way  connected  with  sorrow  j  sorrow  is 
the  poetry  of  a  creation  which  is  fallen,  of  a  race  which  is 
in  exile  in  a  vale  of  tears." 

The  Incarnation.  "  It  was  as  if  nature  stood  on  one  side 
and  let  God  pass." 

Silence.  "  Silence  has  ever  been  the  luxury  of  great 
holiness." 

"  Sorrow  widens  great  hearts  just  as  it  contracts  little 
ones."  , 

"  Hence  it  is,  because  God  alone  is  our  last  end,  He 
never  fails  us." 

The  Life  and  Argument  of  the  Monk.  "  Why  should  we 
ever  stir  from  where  we  are  ?  To  look  on  the  sea  seems 
better  than  to  learn  the  science  of  its  storms,  the  grandeur 
of  its  steadfastness,  or  the  many  moods  of  its  beautiful 
mutabiUties. 


FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER.  8i 

Knowledge  and  Love.  "  We  ask  questions,  not  because 
we  doubt,  but  because,  when  love  is  not  all  in  all  to  us,  we 
must  have  knowledge,  or  we  chafe  and  pine.  We  cannot 
go  far  with  God  at  once ;  the  thought  of  God  is  rest,  but 
the  company  of  God  is  labour  and  fatigue.'' 

"  Number  and  Music  are  depths  I  dare  not  explore  ;  but 
surely  what  the  most  popular  writers  say  of  them  shows  how 
they  represent  the  mysterious  harmony  of  God." 

"  Utifinished  Saints  lie  all  around  us,  like  the  broken 
models  of  a  sculptor's  studio." 

"  The  Bible  is  a  system  of  hieroglyphics,  and  Jesus  is  the 
key  to  them  all." 

"  Fastidious7iess  is  a  stronghold  of  Satan." 

"A  Downcast  Matt  is  raw  material  which  can  only  be 
manufactured  into  a  very  ordinary  Christian." 

'■^Sensitiveness  without  tenderness  is  a  very  terrible  thing." 

Uves.     "  Almost  all  lives  have  got  a  lame  limb." 

Service.     "  To  have  no  master  is  to  be  a  slave." 

*^  There  are  unhealthy  Christians:  temptations  are  their 
task ;  imaginary  cases  of  conscience  are  their  romps  and 
games ;  predestination  is  to  them  like  the  top  of  a  tree,  on 
which  a  bird  sits  and  mocks  us  on  a  Sunday,  when  it  knows 
that  we  have  no  gun  to  shoot  it  with." 

"  We  strain  at  gnats  and  sivallow  camels;  if  we  have  got 
wrong  by  indiscretion  in  austerities,  now  we  are  more  wrong 
by  being  head  over  ears  in  comforts." 

But  we  must  stop.  These  slight  Faberana  will, 
however,  show  to  our  readers  what  a  variety  of 
spiritual  material  may  be  found  in  these  volumes  ; 
pithy,  homely  common-sense  and  wisdom,  far-reach- 
ing imaginative  utterance,  and  musical  expression ; 
the  near  and  the  far  often  meet  on  the  same  page  ; 
a  rich  sentence  shines  out  like  a  poem,  or  like  the 
far-off  splendours  of  a  starry  night ;  and  next  to  it 

6 


82        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


a  very  different  kind  of  sentence  meets  us,  luminous 
too,  but  like  the  gaslight  lightening  the  street,  from 
which  also  we   looked  up  and  saw  the  star.      The 
citations  we  have  given  will  perhaps  sufficiently  in- 
form our  readers  that  Faber's  mind  was  eminently 
and    especially    discursive  :    some    of    his    sermons, 
especially  in  the  "  Spiritual  Conferences,"  are  admir- 
able pieces  of  close  spiritual  counsel    and    advice  ; 
whilst  the  sermons  more  especially  on   "  Weariness 
in   Well-doing,"   on    "  Taking    Scandal    Aright,"    on 
"  The   Danger  and    the   Difficulty   of  Dealing  with 
Wounded    Feelings,"    are    very   concentrated,    close, 
and  intense  pieces  of  talk.     The  same  remark  applies 
to  the  chapters  on  the  "  Growth   in   Holiness,"  and 
"  All  for  Jesus  ; "  but,  usually,  in  those  of  his  works 
which  seem  more  devoted  to  some  especial  subject, 
the  reader,  like   the  hearer,  will  find  how  the  author, 
or  the  preacher,  as  the   case  may   be,  diverges  hither 
and  thither,  and,  in   the  true  fashion  of  the   mystic, 
drives  along  a  sort  of  fiery  chariot  through  the  air, 
striking  from  the  wheels  rayonant  sparks  of  infinite 
and    kindling    suggestion,    but    not,    in    any    logical 
sense,  related  to  the  subject. 

Indeed,  this  preaching  of  Frederick  Faber  seems, 
in  the  best  part  of  it,  to  be  preaching  within  the 
monastery,  or  the  convent.  Our  readers  must  not 
smile  at  this  ;  we  have  too  little  of  it ;  our  preach- 
ing is  for  the  most  part  miscellaneous  ;  our  sermons 
are  constructed  for  great  and  various  congregations  ; 
they  are  arguments,  criticisms,  impassioned  appeals 
to  awaken  consciences  thoroughly  benumbed  and 
asleep.  Church  talk  is  rare  with  us.  Would  Christ 
have  stood  by  the  seaside,  or  in  the  public  places  of 


FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER.  83 

resort,  and  have  preached  the  fourteenth,  fifteenth, 
and  sixteenth  chapters  of  John  ?  Would  He  have 
prayed  the  intercessory  prayer  in  such  scenes  and 
circumstances  ?  We  read  of  occasions  when  He 
"  turned  to  His  disciples  and  spoke  to  them  privately." 
It  is  mere  foolishness  to  talk  to  a  vast  multitude,  a 
great,  restless,  heaving  people,  crowds  of  whom  go  to 
church  or  chapel  simply  because  they  have  nowhere 
else  to  go,  in  the  same  tone  and  strain  as  would 
be  adopted  in  speaking  to  those  who  are  leading, 
-or  desirous  of  leading,  really  consecrated  lives  ;  who 
feel  the  power  and  terrors  of  nature,  and  the  beautiful 
amiabilities  of  grace.  The  preaching  of  a  monk 
like  Faber  in  the  church  before  the  miscellaneous 
congregation,  is  very  different  from  his  preaching  in 
the  little  chapel,  or  the  common  hall,  with  only  the 
cluster  of  brother  monks  around  him. 

Faber,  as  we  read  in  his  life,  laid  great  stress 
upon  the  custom  of  daily  sermons.  This  was  the 
practice  of  St.  Bernard,  and  has  been  the  usage  of 
many  monastic  societies.  Perhaps  many  ministers 
would  be  frightened  at  the  thought  ;  but  a  man 
ever  intended  by  nature  or  grace  to  preach,  with 
mind  and  heart  full,  would  probably  find  that  the 
more  he  preached  the  more  easy  and  happy  he 
would  be  himself  in  the  exercise,  and  the  more 
pleasure  would  his  auditors  feel  in  listening  to  him« 
It  is  the  highly  artificial  preaching  which  is  dreadful, 
dreadful  to  the  preacher,  and  tedious  to  the  hearer. 
We  have  often  talked,  and  heard  talk  of  the  enjoy- 
ment of  preaching  to  a  vast  congregation,  a  crowd  of 
many  hundreds  or  thousands  ;  but  so  much  has  not 
been  said  of  the  enjoyment,  which  we   take  to   be 


84        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

far  deeper,  of  preaching  to  a  very  small  congregation 
of  twenty  or  fifty,  but  where  all  hearts  are  beating 
"  as  the  heart  of  one  man,"  where  all  are  walking 
in  the  same  light,  where  all  are  able  to  "  eat  of  the 
same  spiritual  meat,  and  to  drink  of  the  same 
spiritual  drink,"  and  where  a  power  and  presence 
of  the  eternal  Saviour  and  His  eternal  rest  seem 
to  fold  all  in  and  make  "all  of  one  heart  and  one 
mind."  There  has  not  been  enough  of  thought 
given  to  the  subject  of  preaching  for  this  order. 
Preaching  to  the  world,  to  please  the  world,  to 
charm  the  ears  of  the  curious  and  the  critical, 
why,  what  can  come  of  it  but  spiritual  depravity  .-' 
Such  preaching  admits  of  but  few  depths,  and  few 
heights.  It  may  be  admirable  and  necessary  in  its 
way  ;  but,  surely,  a  congregation  of  believers,  to 
whom  the  truth  is  "  settled  in  their  hearts,"  would 
excite  a  very  different  topic,  and  train  of  illustration 
and  feeling.  Most  congregations  now  greatly  re- 
semble that  of  Mars  Hill,  "  Epicureans  and  Stoics," 
some  listening,  and  "  some  mocking,  and  some  saying. 
We  will  hear  thee  again  on  this  matter."  It  may 
be  supposed  that  week  evening  services,  which  are 
now  very  considerably  falling  into  disuse  and  dis- 
repute, were  intended  to  minister  to  this  more 
earnest  and  sequestered  Church  life.  Thingc  ought 
to  be  said  again  and  again  which  are  even  as 
foolishness  to  the  greater  number  in  a  large  con- 
gregation. What  can  it  profit  to  set  before  those 
whose  minds  and  hearts  have  not  apprehended  the 
"  first  principles  "  those  deep  and  high  things  of  the 
Divine  life  by  which  the  spiritual  nature  is  sus- 
tained and  fed  ?     Now,  there  is  much  in  this  order 


I'REDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER.  85 

of  preaching,  of  Faber's  especially  under  review, 
fitted  to  minister  to  this  more  spiritual  life.  Spiritual 
facts  are  taken  for  granted  ;  they  are  not  so 
much  reasoned  about  as  dilated  upon.  The  preacher 
does  not  prove  that  it  is  a  well,  and  show 
when,  and  how  it  was  dug,  and  by  what  processes 
the  stream  percolated  until  it  reached  that  spot  ; 
he  does  not  spend  time  in  assuring  you  that  it  is 
trustworthy  food  ;  he  exclaims  to  an  eager,  if  a 
small,  company,  "  Eat  abundantly,  O  friends,  yea 
drink  abundantly,  O  beloved."  There  is  danger  of 
such  preaching  becoming  shallow  and  common- 
place, but  so  of  the  other  order  too.  And  is  not 
this  necessary  }  should  we  not  seek  to  minister  to 
this  Church  appetite,  as  well  as  to  the  more  worldly 
appetite  in  the  congregation  .-* 

But  we  must  not  convey  the  impression  that  the 
preaching  of  Faber  was  solely  and  only  of  this 
order.  Many  of  the  notes  of  his  discourses  are  of 
a  very  popular  character,  and  are  fitted,  when  the 
outlines  are  filled  up,  to  have  an  influence  over  the 
largest  and  most  miscellaneous  congregations.  We 
shall  select  some  which  may  stand  as  types  pro- 
bably of  his  pulpit  method. 

"  '  HE    SAVED   OTHERS  :    HIMSELF   HE   CANNOT   SAVE.* 

"  Is  it  not  strange  that  such  wicked  words  can  be  so 
beautiful  ?  Yet  are  they  not  beautiful  ?  Oh,  beautiful  as 
some  fragment  of  an  angel's  song  !  '  He  saved  others  : 
Himself  He  cannot  save.' 

"I.  What  He  looked  like  to  those  who  saw  Him  on  the  cross. 

**  I.  Description  of  Him  all  disfigured. 

"  2.  So  changed  from  what  they  had  seen  Him  in  the 


86        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

temple,  or  on  Palm  Sunday.  He  was  not  an  object  of 
horror.  Suffering  can  beautify  with  a  pitiable  beauty.  It 
can  make  reverend.  Even  death  can  beautify.  Its  rigid 
repose  can  even  be  a  more  graceful  thing  than  the  supple 
grace  of  life. 

"3.  At  least  He  was  an  object  of  pity  :  horror  of  gibing  the 
pitiable,  and  in  the  hearing  of  His  mother!  What  a 
dreadful  thing  hatred  is  !  and  such  a  hatred! 

"II.    What  He  looks  like  to  us. 

"  I.  The  Godhead  shining  through  the  disfigurement. 

"  2.  His  love  of  men  beautifying  the  very  disfigurement 
itself. 

"  3.  Oh,  to  us  such  an  object  of  love,  of  pity  also,  yet 
much  more  of  love  and  of  adoration. 

**  III.  He  saved  others. 

"  I.  What  !  did  they  hate  Him  for  savirig  men? 

*'  2.  But  the  fact,  how  true  it  is  !  He  did  indeed  save 
others  ;  He  saved  us,  perhaps  them  ;  some  who  jeered,  e.g. 
the  penitent  thief,  are  now  with  Him  in  heaven. 

"  3.  He  did  not  care  to  save  Himself,  so  long  as  He  saved 
us.  He  never  thought  of  Himself;  this  was  His  human 
character,  He  pleased  not  Himself;  it  was  this  which  so 
touched  St.  Paul. 

"IV.  Himself  He  cannot  save. 

"  I.  Can  this  be  true?  He  is  the  omnipotent  God; 
angels  are  waiting  His  sign. 

"  2.  Yet  it  is  true.  He  is  helpless ;  He  cannot  save 
Himself;  He  cannot  come  down  from  the  cross. 

"3.  But  what  hinders?  Oh,  such  a  might  of  love,  of 
love  only,  of  love  for  us. 

"V.    We. 

"  I.  Did  we  then  seem  so  beautiful?  Oh  no  !  how  far 
from  that  ! 

*'  2.  But  we  did  seem  so  pitiable  !     He  lost  all  pity  for 

Himself   and   for   His   mother,    because   we    did  look   so 
infinitely  pitiable. 


FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER.  87 

"3.  And  yet,  even  after  it  all,  we  can  scarcely  force 
ourselves  to  pity  Him ;  we  can  hardly  strain  a  tear,  or 
force  a  sigh,  because  of  the  pains  of  our  dear  crucified 
Love ! 

"How  much  the  Passion  has  saved  us  from  !  Out  of  what 
a  depth  it  has  rescued  us  !  Truly  we  can  now  use  those 
merciless  words  of  the  Jews  in  quite  another  sense.  Looking 
at  our  Saviour's  face,  we  can  say,  *  Yes,  my  Jesus,  my  Lord 
and  my  God ;  Thou  savest  others,  Thyself  Thou  canst  not 
save  1 ' " 

The  follow^ing  strikes  us  as  a  truly  masterly  and 
comprehensive  outline  for  the  most  useful  and 
popular  preaching. 

"*GOD   WHO   IS   RICH   IN   MERCY.' 

**  We  want  many  things,  many  things,  of  God  ;  we  shall 
never  cease  to  want  many  things  of  Him.  When  we  possess 
Him  in  the  incredible  happiness  of  our  grand  eternity, 
though  we  shall  possess  Him,  we  shall  still  want  Him.  If 
He  were  to  speak  to  me  now,  and  I  had  to  say  the  one 
thing,  only  one,  which  I  most  wanted  of  Him,  could  I 
hesitate  in  my  answer  one  moment  ?  Father  !  I  want  mercy. 
If  I  think  of  the  past,  I  want  mercy ;  of  the  present,  mercy ; 
of  the  future,  mercy ;  of  eternity,  7nercy.  St  Paul,  prisoner 
at  Rome,  writes  to  theEphesians,  and  calls  God,  God  who 
is  rich  in  mercy.  This  name  of  God  is  exceedingly  sweet  ; 
it  sings  in  my  ear  like  an  angel's  song  :  beautiful  things  came 
out  of  that  marvellous  mind  of  St.  Paul's,  none  ever 
more  beautiful  than  this — God  who  is  rich  in  mercy. 

**  I.  What  it  is  for  God  to  be  rich.  To  be  rich  is  to  have 
superfluity,  more  than  we  want.  God  more  than  He  wants ! 
What  a  thought ! 

"  I.  The  immensity  of  His  treasures. 

**  2.  The  variety  of  them. 


88        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

"  3  Their  delightfulness  to  creatures.  Can  God  possibly 
create  two  things  more  insatiable  than  the  spirit  of  an  angel 
and  the  soul  of  a  man  ? 

"  4.  His  liberality. 

"  5.  But  in  ffiercy,  St.  Paul  hints,  eminently,  unspeakably, 
unimaginably  rich. 

**  II.  The  inside  of  the  treasury  of  God. 

"  I.  Creation, — what  a  vastness  it  is,  what  an  outpouring 
it  was  I 

"  2.  Grace,  its  beauty  and  abundance. 

"  3.  Jesus,  with  His  immensities  of  Bethlehem,  Nazareth, 
and  Calvary. 

"4.  The  unsearchable  magnificence  of  His  own  ever- 
blessed  self. 

"  III.  Mercy  sweetening  life. 

"i.  Are  we  in  trouble  about  our  past  life?  Hark,  how 
sweet  that  apostolic  voice  !  Listen ;  it  is  an  angel  singing, 
Rich  in  mercy  I 

"  2.  Trouble  about  past  vileness  ?  The  very  vile  flowers 
from  the  earth  breathe  forth  the  words,  the  silence  tingles 
into  a  sound,  and  articulates.  Rich  in  mercy  I  It  is  like  one 
of  those  beams  of  God  which  sometimes  fall  athwart  the 
darkness  of  our  prayer. 

"  3.  Trouble  about  those  we  love,  whom  we  have  long 
prayed  for,  who  seem  past  prayer  ?  Rich  in  mercy  J  Blessed 
be  St.  Paul  for  that  happy  word ;  or  rather.  Blessed  be  the 
Holy  Ghost  for  that  tender  inspiration. 

"4.  Trouble  about  our  dead,  whose  faults  come  perti- 
naciously to  mind  ?     Rich  in  mercy  ! 

"  5.  A  death  to  die,  and  a  judgment  to  go  through  ? 
These  are  panics  such  as  to  be  almost  unbelievable  ;  yet 
they  are  infallible.  Rich  in  mercy  I  Yes  !  in  a  torture  of 
believing  love,  we  cry — it  is  the  utterance  of  our  human 
faith — Rich  in  mercy ! 

"  IV.  We  often  talk  of  a  thing  we  know  till  it  strikes  us 
that  we  do  not  know  it.     Familiarity  has  a  way  of  making 


FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER.  89 

things  strange  to  us.    \^\\2X'v~,  mercy  f    What  an  unanswerable 
question  !  but  let  us  try  to  answer  it. 

"  I.  It  is  all  the  wants  of  the  creature  satisfied  in 
one. 

**  2.  It  is  all  his  difficulties  answered,  and  turned  into 
revelations. 

"  3.  It  is  all  the  sweetness  of  God  put  into  one. 

"4.  It  is  the  beautifulness  of  God  to  us: — (i)  Power 
become  gentle.  (2)  Wisdom  dissolved  into  kindness.  (3) 
Magnificence  made  tender.  (4)  Justice  grown  indulgent. 
(5)  Love's  delight  in  us,  fidelity  to  us,  inability  to  do  with- 
out us. 

"  5.  Oh  no  !  mercy  is  far  more  than  all  this  ;  look  up  into 
God ;  wait  a  while,  till  your  eyes  get  accustomed  to  the 
blaze;  look  up  to  His  highest  heights,  gaze  into  His  deepest 
depths  ;  there  now,  you  see  mercy.  Oh,  how  unutterably 
beautiful !  and  you  may  read  the  new  name  God  gave  to  mercy; 
and  when  He  gave  it,  the  songs  of  the  angels  thundered 
round  the  throne  as  they  had  never  done  before — '  Thou 
shalt  call  His  name  Jesus;  for  He  shall  save  His  people 
from  their  sins.' 

"  All  this  is  incredible  :  it  is  incredible  ;  but  faith  manages 
to  believe  many  incredible  things.  If  all  this  be  true,  what 
becomes  of  the  justice  and  sanctity  of  God  ?  I  do  not  know 
I  cannot  think,  I  must  not  question.  Sin  is  encouraged  ? 
I  hope  not ;  but  if  men  take  scandal  with  the  justice  of  God, 
no  wonder  they  take  scandal  with  the  mercy  of  God  ;  for  it 
is  more  excessive,  more  unexpected,  more  out  of  place,  more 
unaccountable.  God  must  see  to  it.  God  must  provide. 
I  grant  it  is  a  difficulty,  a  miracle,  a  secret,  a  mystery  ;  but 
to  faith  one  phrase,  which  St.  Peter  invented,  and  which  I 
will  put  alongside  of  that  of  St.  Paul's  on  which  I  have  been 
commenting,  one  phrase  unlocks  the  whole,  answers  the 
whole,  illuminates  the  whole, — the  whole  Church  is  sound- 
ing it  to-day,  as  through  a  silver  trumpet : — The  precious 
BLOOD  1 " 


90        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

The  following  outline  has  a  ringing  intensity  of 
feeling,  and  illustrates  Faber's  peculiar  textual 
preaching,  effective  no  doubt,  but  very  free  from 
elaboration  and  art. 

"  *  OUR   LAMPS  ARE  GONE  OUT.' 

"  Whatever  it  costs,  we  must  be  saved.  CertaJWy  ;  but 
from  the  lives  we  lead  it  does  not  seem  as  if  salvation  was 
costing  much.  Is  it  ?  If  it  is,  then  to  you  I  do  not  speak. 
If  it  is  not,  then  one  of  two  things  :  either  it  is  a  mistake 
that  salvation  costs  much,  or  else  we  are  not  in  the  right 
way  to  be  saved.  Of  the  two  alternatives,  the  last,  in  my 
judgment,  is  most  likely  to  be  true.  Is  a  careless,  inatten- 
tive, easy-going,  good  person  better  off  in  his  chances  of 
salvation  than  a  downright  sinner  ?  Let  us  see  if  we  can 
get  an  answer  from  our  blessed  Lord  Himself. 

"  Read  the  history  of  the  foolish  virgins. 

"  I.  *  Our  lamps  are  gone  out  /'  The  horror  of  this  cry : 
all  that  is  compressed  in  it :  what  secrets  of  slovenly  lives 
which  only  half  suspected  their  own  slovenliness  :  numbers 
of  dying  people  are  uttering  it  daily  :  if  it  could  be  heard 
and  understood,  it  would  surely  hush  all  creatures  into 
sil-iice,  it  is  so  thrilling,  so  significant,  a  whole  boundless 
eternity  echoing  it  so  wildly. 

"  II.  You  see,  they  had  got  lamps:  they  had  been  at  the 
pains  to  buy  oil :  o?ice  their  lamps  were  not  out. 

"III.  They  had  been  watching  and  wakeful  nearly  all 
their  lives :  it  had  been  the  object  of  their  lives  to  wait  for 
the  Bridegroom.  You  do  not  look  to  me  as  if  you  were 
doing  even  so  much  as  that. 

"  IV.  And  now  they  did  not  go  away,  go  after  the  world ; 
they  only  slept;  i.e.,  they  took  things  easily :  it  was  trouble- 
some to  be  always  on  their  guard :  they  relaxed  the  wake- 
fulness of  prayer  ;  they  let  their  consciences  get  indistinct. 
But  the  good  slept  also :  yes  !  and  even  they  ran  a  hideous 


FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER.  91 

risk  :  but  before  that  they  had  repented,  they  had  done 
much  ;  there  had  been  mortifications  ;  they  had  not  merely 
trusted  to  faith,  to  feelings,  and  to  outward  devotions.  The 
midnight  cry  takes  all  by  surprise  ! 

"  V.  Haste  to  buy  oil :  the  Bridegroom  comes  :  the  doors 
are  shut :  '•Lord,  Lord,  open  to  us  I'  He  can  but  just  have 
gone  in  !     He  will  hear  1 

"  VI.  The  voice  from  ivithin  I  yes  !  He  has  heard  :  the 
voice  !  such  fearful  words  in  so  sweet  a  voice  :  *  I  know  you 
not!'  Not  even  knowz/i-/  why,  we  believed  in  Him,  wc 
prayed  to  Him,  we  waited  for  Him  :  yet  He  is  truth  and 
cannot  lie.  Oh  !  it  is  only  to  try  us,  to  reprove  us :  it  can 
be  nothing  more. 

"  Vn.  *  Lord,  Lord,  open  to  us  /'  Oh  the  agonizing  cry ! 
for  what  is  it  to  be  left  outside?  it  is  misery,  despair, 
madness,  hell !  *  Lord,  Lord,  open  to  us  !  '  All  is  still :  no 
voice  comes  again.  He  spake  once,  and  He  confirmed 
it  with  His  amen,  the  gentle  positiveness  of  which  had  been 
heard  by  the  lake  side,  and  on  the  green  hill,  and  in  the 
cornfield,  and  in  the  temple  court.  Oh  those  shut  doors  ! 
how  fair,  how  beautiful  is  all  within  those  doors, — a  land 
of  golden  light,  of  purest  happiness,  of  everlasting  life  ! 
*  Lord,  Lord,  open  to  us  T  O  foolish,  foolish  virgins,  those 
doors  will  never  open  more  !  " 

This  is  a  very  feeble  little  sketch  of  a  man  w^hose 
preaching  and  devotional  works  have  been  likened, 
by  the  ablest  men  of  his  own  Church,  to  the  words 
of  St  Bernard,  and  St.  Bernardine  of  Sienna  ;  nor 
do  we  think  the  eulogy  too  high.  There  was  a 
singular  mingling  in  him  ;  his  life  reveals,  to  our 
sorrow,  traces  of  singular  bigotry  ;  but  that  was  to 
be  expected — alas  that  it  should  be  so  ! — from  his 
Church  :  and  we  leave  it  Nor  is  this  the  .place  to 
open  those  volumes  which  reveal  him  as  a  sacred 


92        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

poet.  Many  of  his  hymns  are  wonderful.*  Faber 
shows  to  us  one  thing — that  a  man  may  preach  well 
and  work  hard,  in  many  ways.  Beside  the  works  we 
have  enumerated,  he  was  the  author  of  many  others, 
and  edited  as  well  the  Oratorian  Lives  of  the  Saints, 
in  forty-two  volumes.  He  went  Home  in  1863, — 
after  achieving  so  much, — at  the  early  age  of  forty- 
nine. 


*  "  Hymns  by  Frederick  William  Faber,  D.D." 
"  Poems  by  Frederick  William  Faber,  D.D." 
"  Sir  Lancelot :  a  Legend  of  the  Middle  Ages."  By  Frede- 
rick W.  Faber,  D.D. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

MEDIEVAL  AND  POST-MEDIEVAL 
PRE  A  CHERS. 

WITH  the  preaching  and  the  preachers  of  the 
Middle  Ages  most  readers  have  but  a  very- 
slight  acquaintance  ;  and  many,  indeed,  fancy  that 
the  pulpit  and  its  powers  were  the  birth  of  the 
Reformation,  but  this  is  far  from  true  ;  no  doubt, 
the  stories  of  the  pulpit  of  those  darker  times  are 
mostly  inaccessible ;  they  are  in  other  languages, 
and  buried  in  the  libraries  of  colleges  and  monas- 
teries, or  they  are  scattered  through  the  huge  masses 
and  incidental  references  of  miscellaneous  Church 
literature ;  but  could  they  be  rescued  from  their 
obscurity,  they  would  tell  a  very  wonderful  tale  of 
the  power  of  speech  in  those  rude  times.  The 
accomplished  and  lamented  Dr.  Neale  has  done 
this  work  in  a  slight,  interesting,  popular,  and  not 
the  less  valuable  book  ;  *  and  with  this  may  be  men- 
tioned another  even  more  interesting  work,  dealing 
with  less  known  names, j"  by  a  scholar  whose  taste 

*  "Mediaeval  Preachers  and  Mediaeval  Preaching.  A  Series 
of  Extracts,  translated  from  the  Sermons  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
with  Notes  and  an  Introduction."  By  the  Rev.  J.  M.  Neale, 
M.A.,  Warden  of  Sackville  College. 

t"  Post-Mediaeval  Preachers  :  Some  Account  of  the  most 
Celebrated  Preachers  of  the  fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and  seven- 


94        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

leads  him  into  the  study  of  all  strange  folk-lore — 
and  truly  these  anecdotes  of  preachers  belong  to  a 
kind  and  branch  of  folk-lore — Mr.  Baring-Gould. 
Anecdotes  of  the  pulpit,  of  the  monastery,  and  the 
Catholic  Church  are  found  strewn  along  the  pages 
of  those  immense  and  insane  piles  of  manifold  read- 
ing and  learning  "  The  Mores  Catholici "  and  the 
"  Compitum  "  of  Mr.  Kenelm  Digby,  but  there  is  no 
well-wrought  history  of  the  pulpit  of  those  times  ; 
and  he  who  would  write  it  must  spend  his  days  and 
nights  for  a  long  time  among  dusty  piles  of  Church 
antiquities,  and  be  a  very  BoUandist  in  industry  and 
patience. 

As  this  volume  is  not  a  Church  history,  so 
neither  is  it  intended  to  be  a  complete  review  of  the 
history  of  pulpit  eloquence  ;  in  leaving,  therefore, 
the  earlier  ages  for  the  mediaeval,  we  do  not  feel 
called  upon  to  trace  the  distinct  links  of  instruction 
which  held  together  the  doctrines  and  teachings  of 
those  times,  especially  when  barbarian  hordes  were 
ploughing  up  all  the  ancient  landmarks  of  civilisa- 
tion in  Europe.  In  many  lonely  cloistered  places 
the  truth  of  form  and  the  truth  of  feeling  survived. 
The  sermons  of  the  Venerable  Bede  are  known  to  us; 
they  are  short  and  popular.  We  must  also,  in  any 
measure  of  prejudice  we  may  feel  against  the  follies, 
falsehoods,  and  tyrannous  cruelties  of  the  Papacy,  be 
wise  to  distinguish  between  the  men  and  the  ages. 
Dr.  Neander's  invaluable  "  Memorials  of  the  Christian 
Life,"  and  his  "  Light  Shining  in  Dark  Places," 
will  show  that  in  rude  times  the  "fire  the   Redeemer 

teenth  Centuries;  with  Outlines  of  their  Sermons  and  Speci- 
mens of  their  Style."     By  S.  Barings-Gould,  M.A. 


MEDIEVAL  PREACHERS.  95 

came  to  kindle  on  the  earth,  among  the  human  race, 
never  ceased  to  burn,  either  with  a  clearer  or  a 
duller  flame  ;  that  rude  stock  of  humanity  commu- 
nicated its  rudeness  to  the  chosen  to  be  trained  by 
it,  and  in  virtue  of  human  freedom,  it  could  be 
trained  in  no  other  way.  Christianity  was  propa- 
gated in  a  few  intelligible  do'-trines  which  verified 
t lie  in  selves  as  the  power  of  God  in  the  souls  of  men  ; 
for  the  true  dignity  of  man  does  not  consist  in  the 
harmonious  cultivation  of  all  the  moral  and  spiritual 
tendencies  of  his  nature,  but  in  the  Divine  received 
into  the  interior  of  tJie  soiiiy* 

There  was  darkness  enough  ;  we  do  know  they 
were  dark  ages  ;  we  especially  allude  to  the  period 
from  the  sixth  to  the  twelfth  centuries  ;  but  we 
suppose  that  the  pulpit  had  its  place  in  those  times, 
and  from  the  twelfth  century  the  light  began  to  stream 
with  a  steady  clearness,  and  even  to  blaze. 

That  attention  was  given  to  the  art  of  reading  in 
public,  and  preaching,  even  in  the  earliest  times,  is 
evident  from  the  book  "De  Institutione  Clericorum," 
by  Rabanus  Maurus,  afterwards  Archbishop  of  Mentz ; 
this  work  was  written  in  819,  but  Dr.  Maitland,  in 
his  work  on  the  "  Dark  Ages,"  in  quoting  it,  shows 
that  for  much  of  it  Maurus  was  indebted  to  Isidor 
of  Seville,  who  wrote  more  than  two  hundred  years 
before ;  but  volumes  might  easily  be  filled  with 
extracts  illustrating  the  faith,  and  the  mental  and 
spiritual  power  of  those,  and  the  subsequent  times, 
evidenced  in  the  words  and  the  works  of  the  pulpit ; 
referring  more  generally  to  the  method  of  the  pulpit 

*  Neander's  "Memorials  of  the  Christian  Life,"  etc.,  p.  415. 


96        THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

of  those  times,  ought  we  to  say  that  from  all  that 
we  know  of  it,  we  are  sorry  to  agree  with  Dr. 
Neale  when  he  affirms  that  there  was  an  immense 
and  intuitive  knowledge  of  Scripture  possessed  by 
those  preachers,  setting  them,  in  these  particulars, 
above  the  preachers  of  our  own,  or  of  any  times 
since  the  Reformation?  There  was  a  perfect  affluence 
of  Scripture  reference  in  them, — very  instructive  ; 
as  Mr.  Gould  has  said,  "  they  did  not  make  long 
extracts,  but  with  one  light  sweep  brushed  up  a 
whole  bright  string  of  sparkling  Scripture  instances," 
and  he  gives  the  following  extract ;  we  know  not 
from  whom  it  is  taken  : — 

'•'many  are  called,  but  few  are  chosen.' 

"Noah  preached  to  the  old  world  for  a  hundred  years 
the  coming  in  of  the  flood,  and  how  many  were  saved  when 
the  world  was  destroyed  ?  Eight  souls,  and  among  them 
was  the  reprobate  Ham.  Many  were  called,  but  only  eight 
were  chosen. 

"  When  God  would  rain  fire  and  brimstone  on  the  cities 
of  the  plain,  were  ten  saved  ?  No  !  only  four,  and  of  these 
four  one  looked  back.  Many  were  called,  but  three  were 
chosen. 

"Six  hundred  thousand  men,  besides  women  and  children, 
went  through  the  Red  Sea,  the  like  figure  whereunto 
Baptism  doth  even  now  save  us.  The  host  of  Pharaoh 
and  the  Egyptians  went  in  after  them,  and  of  them  not 
one  reached  the  further  shore.  And  of  these  Israelites, 
who  passed  through  the  sea  out  of  Egypt,  how  many 
entered  the  promised  land,  the  land  flowing  with  milk 
and  honey?  Two  only — Caleb  and  Joshua.  Many — six 
hundred  thousand — were  called ;  few,  even  two,  were  chosen. 
All  the  host  of  Pharaoh,  a  shadow  of  those  who  despise 


MEDIEVAL   PREACHERS.  q; 

and  set  at  nought  the  Red  Sea  of  Christ's  blood,  perish 
without  exception  ;  of  God's  chosen  people,  image  of  His 
Church,  only  few  indeed  are  saved. 

"  How  many  multitudes  teemed  in  Jericho,  and  of  them 
how  many  escaped  when  Joshua  encamped  against  the  city  ? 
The  walls  fell ;  men  and  women  perished.  One  house  alone 
escaped,  known  by  the  scarlet  thread,  type  of  the  blood  of 
Jesus,  and  that  was  the  house  of  a  harlot. 

"Gideon  went  against  the  Midianites  with  thirty-two 
thousand  men.  The  host  of  Midian  was  without  number, 
as  the  sand  of  the  sea-side  for  multitude.  How  many  of 
these  thirty-two  thousand  men  did  God  suffer  Gideon  to 
lead  into  victory?  Three  hundred  only.  Many,  even 
thirty-two  thousand  men,  were  called,  three  hundred 
chosen. 

"  Type  and  figure  this  of  the  many  enrolled  into  the 
Church's  army,  of  whom  so  it'f^  go  on  to  *  fight  the  good 
fight  of  faith  ! ' 

"  Of  the  tribes  of  Israel  twelve  men  only  were  chosen  to 
be  apostles  ;  and  of  those  twelve,  one  was  a  traitor,  one 
doubtful,  one  denied  his  Master,  all  forsook  Him, 

"  How  many  rulers  were  there  among  the  Jews  when 
Christ  came  ;  but  one  only  went  to  Him,  and  he  by  night ! 

*'  How  many  rich  men  were  there  when  our  blessed  Lord 
walked  this  earth  ;  but  one  only  ministered  unto  Him,  and 
he  only  in  His  burial ! 

"  How  many  peasants  were  there  in  the  country  when 
Christ  went  to  die ;  but  one  only  was  deemed  worthy  to  bear 
His  cross,  and  he  bore  it  by  constraint. 

"  How  many  thieves  were  there  m  Judcea  when  Christ  was 
there ;  but  one  only  entered  Paradise,  and  he  was  converted 
in  his  last  hour  ! 

'*  How  many  centurions  were  there  scattered  over  the 
province  ;  but  one  only  saw  and  believed,  and  he  by  cruelly 
piercing  the  Saviour's  side  1 

"  How   many   harlots    were   there   in   that   wicked   and 

7 


98        THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

adulterous  generation  ;   but  one  only  washed  His  feet  wit 
tears  and  wiped  them  with  the  hair  of  her  head  !     Truly 
'  many  are  called,  but  few  are  chosen.^ " 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  is  earnest 
Scriptural  preaching,  and  if  the  Bible  be  the  power  of 
God,  it  may  surely  be  expected  that  such  preaching 
would  be  with  power. 

We  are  not  concerned  to  recite  all  the  madness  of 
the  preaching  friars,  the  races  of  men  who  wandered 
over  Europe  with  the  rosary  of  St.  Dominic  or  the 
cord  of  St.  Francis,  nor  do  we  desire  in  these  pages 
to  narrate  their  achievements,  but  without  doubt  they 
do  sufficiently  affirm  the  pov\^er  of  speech  and  of 
preaching.  Dr.  Milman  has  shown  how  their  popular 
eloquence  became  a  new  power,  reviving  the  languid 
faith,  and  rekindling  the  dying  ardour  or  superstition 
of  the  Church  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Wondrously, 
from  burning  lips,  the  enthusiasm  spread  ;  the  story 
of  the  preaching  orders  is  a  wonderful  chapter  in  the 
romance  of  the  pulpit,  and  if  we  smile  at,  and  even 
scorn  the  fanaticism  of  some,  it  is  impossible  to  for- 
bear interest  in  the  magical  effects  of  the  harangues 
of  St.  Anthony  of  Padua,  and  the  spell  of  holiness, 
which  even  now  seems  to  attract,  in  the  life  and 
words  of  St.  Bonaventura  ;^^e  may  laugh,  indeed, 
when  the  first  preaches  in  sober  seriousness — and 
not,  like  his  namesake  St.  Antonio  of  Vieyra,  in 
satire,  to  "  the  fishes  who  approached  the  shore,  and 
listened  to  him,  devoutly  bowing  down  their  heads, 
and  moving  very  gently."*  But  it  is  impossible, 
we  think,   to    misunderstand   what   Bonaventura  in- 

•  See  "  The  Life  of  St.     Anthony  of  Padua."  Paris,  1660. 


MEDIEVAL  PREACHERS.  99 

tended  when  Thomas  Aquinas  asked  him  whence  he 
received  the  force  and  unction  he  displayed  in  all  his 
works,  and  he,  pointing  to  a  crucifix  hanging  on 
the  wall  of  his  cell,  exclaimed,  ''It  is  that  image 
ivhicJi  dictates  all  my  ivords  to  me ; "  he  felt  the 
presence  of  Christ  in  his  lonely  cell,  it  wrought  in 
him,  it  wrought  through  him,  it  was  the  passion  of 
his  Redeemer  which  moved  his  soul,  his  life,  his  pen. 
Christ,  His  name,  His  works,  did  give  unquestion- 
ably a  deep  and  constant  pathos  to  the  words  of 
many  of  these  preachers  ;  many  of  them  seem  to 
say,  with  the  great  Bernard,  ''Jesus ;  all  the  food 
of  the  soul  is  dry  if  it  be  not  mingled  with  this  oil, 
is  insipid  if  it  be  not  preserved  with  this  salt  ;  if  you 
write,  I  have  no  relish  unless  I  there  read  of  Jesus  ; 
if  you  dispute  or  confer,  I  have  no  relish  unless  in 
them  I  hear  the  name  of  Jesus."  Thus  came  their 
discourses  to  be  so  eminently  Scriptural  ;  thus  every 
text,  every  incident  became  hallowed  and  perfum-^d 
with  the  name  of  Jesus.  There  is  a  fragment  of 
a  sermon  by  Guarric  of  Igniac,  a  friend  of  St. 
Bernard,  showing  how  we  ought  to  see  Christ  in  all 
the  histories  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  very  text 
strikes  the  note  of  the  whole  : — 

"  *  THEY   TOLD   JACOB,    SAYING,    JOSEPH    IS    YET   ALIVE.' 

"  ^  Arid  they  told  Jacob,  saying,  Joseph  is  yet  alive'  You 
will  perhaps  say  to  me,  It  is  very  well ;  but  what  is  it  to 
the  point?  What  has  Joseph  to  do  with  the  joy  of  this 
day, — with  the  glory  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ?  It  is 
Easter ;  and  are  you  still  setting  before  us  Lent  fare  ? 
Our  soul  is  an  hungered  for  the  Paschal  Lamb,  for  which 
it  has  been  preparing  itself  by  so  long  a  fast.     Our  heart 


100      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

burns  within  us  for  Jesus  ;  we  desire  Jesus  ;  if  we  do  not 
as  yet  merit  to  see  Him,  at  least  we  would  hear  of  Him. 
We  hunger  for  Jesus,  not  for  Joseph ;  for  the  Saviour, 
not  for  the  dreamer ;  for  the  Lord  of  heaven,  not  of 
Egypt ;  not  for  him  who  fed  the  body,  but  for  Him  who 
feeds  the  soul  that  is  hungry.  In  this,  at  least,  your 
discourse  may  help  us,  by  causing  that  for  Him  after  whom 
we  already  hunger  we  should  hunger  still  more.  For  we 
read,  '  Blessed  are  they  that  hunger,  for  they  shall  be  filled.^ 
When  we  hear  we  hunger  the  more  ;  for  he  who  commends 
a  feast  irritates  hunger.  If  we  were  to  hear  of  Jesus,  we 
should  be  '  viade  to  hear  of  joy  and  gladness,  that  the  bones 
which  were  broken  may  rejoice.^  Broken  they  were  with  our 
Lent  affliction  and  grief,  yet  still  more  with  the  sorrow  of 
His  passion  ;  but  they  shall  rejoice  at  the  tidings  of  His 
resurrection.  Why,  then,  are  you  setting  before  us  your 
Joseph  when  we  have  no  relish  for  anything  of  which  you 
speak  except  Jesus,  especially  to-day,  when  the  Paschal 
Lamb  is  eaten,  when  Christ  our  Passover  is  sacrificed  for 
us  ?  My  brethren,  I  have  given  you  an  egg,  or  a  nut ; 
break  the  shell,  and  you  will  find  the  meat.  Let  Joseph  be  in- 
vestigated, and  Jesus  will  be  discovered — the  Paschal  Lamb 
after  whom  ye  hunger ;  who  has  so  much  the  more  sweet- 
ness in  the  eating  by  how  much  there  is  more  abstruseness 
in  the  hiding,  and  diligence  in  the  seeking,  and  difficulty 
in  the  finding.  You  say  to  me,  What  has  Joseph  to  do 
with  Christ;  what  has  the  history  which  I  proposed  to 
do  with  this  day  ?  Much  in  every  way  ;— call  to  mind  the 
story,  and  the  loving-kindness  of  the  Mystery  will  reveal 
itself  of  its  own  accord,  if  only  ye  have  Jesus  as  the  In- 
terpreter, who  to-day,  rising  from  the  letter  that  killeth, 
speaks  to  His  own  in  the  way,  and  opens  to  them  the 
Scriptures J^ 

Surely  such   passages  show  how  sweet  were  the 
meditations  of   many    of   these    men    amidst    their 


MEDI.^VAL  PREACHERS. 


cloisters.  They  desired  to  speak  plainly  ;  it  was 
only  in  the  latter  part  of  that  long  and,  to  us,  dark 
age,  that  the  reproofs  of  Anthony  of  Vieyra  became 
necessary  ;  that  great  preacher  says — and  surely  his 
language  may  stand  as  a  rebuke  to  many  of  our 
modern  follies  in  this  way — 

"  Let  us  learn  from  the  heaven  the  way  in  which  we  are 
to  arrange  our  matter  and  our  words.  How  ought  our 
words  to  be  ?  Like  the  stars.  The  stars  are  very  distinct 
and  very  clear.  So  should  be  the  style  of  sermons,  very 
clear  and  very  distinct.  And  have  no  fear  lest  on  this 
account  it  should  appear  low  and  vulgar ;  the  stars,  clear 
and  distinct  as  they  are,  are  most  lofty.  Style  may  be 
very  clear  and  very  lofty,  so  clear  that  those  who  are 
ignorant  may  understand  it,  and  so  lofty  that  those  who 
are  wise  may  have  much  to  find  out  in  it.  The  country- 
man finds  in  the  stars  rules  for  his  husbandry,  the  mariner 
for  his  navigation,  and  the  mathematician  for  his  observa- 
tions and  judgments.  So  that  the  countryman  and  the 
sailor,  who  can  neither  read  nor  write,  understand  the 
stars ;  and  the  mathematician,  who  has  read  every  book 
that  was  ever  written,  does  not  obtain  to  the  complete 
understanding  of  the  constellations.  So  a  sermon  might 
be :  stars  that  all  can  see  and  very  few  can  measure. 

"  Yes,  Father ;  but  this  way  of  preaching  is  not  '  the 
cultivated  style.'  I  wish  it  were.  This  unfortunate  style 
which  is  nowadays  the  fashion  is  called  cultivated  by  those 
who  wish  to  honour  it,  and  obscure  by  those  who  condemn 
it.     But  even  the  latter  do  it  too  much  honour."* 

The  spirit  of  clearness  and  familiarity  in  these 
preachers    led   them  to  illustrate  their  discourse  by 

*  We  quote  no  further  from  this  sermon,  as  it  has  already 
been  referred  to  in  the  "  Throne  of  Eloquence,"  p.  113. 


102      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 
• 

stories,  homely  proverbs,  and  similes  ;  their  business 
was  to  win  their  way  to  the  hearts  of  the  poor  ;  this 
is  best  illustrated  by  Mr.  Gould  ;  some  of  the 
preachers  from  whom  he  cites,  and  whose  names 
were  quite  unknown  to  us,  had  in  the  pulpit  the 
fancy  of  Hans  Andersen  ;  it  is  impossible  to  divest 
the  mind  of  the  feeling  of  an  affectionate  spirit 
pervading  all  they  said  ;  they  desired  to  rouse,  inform, 
and  comfort,  and  they  succeeded.  In  our  day  genius 
has  been  too  proud  to  condescend  to  the  pulpit,  or, 
even  there,  to  the  poor  ;  or  if  the  poor  are  con- 
descended to,  it  is  in  mistaken  language,  as  if  they 
lacked  the  power  of  appreciating  the  beautiful,  the 
tender,  and  the  true.  Some,  it  is  true,  stooped  to 
buffoonery;  they  loved  to  reproduce,  in  coarse  and 
homely  guise,  the  manner  of  /Esop  ;  like  John  Rau- 
lin  for  instance.  Francis  Cosier  followed  in  quite 
another  style,  and  while  we  will  not  commend,  nor 
give  our  sanction  to  it,  any  more  than  we  would  to 
the  deliverance  of  one  of  Mrs.  Gatty's  parables  from 
the  pulpit,  we  think,  in  a  day  when  the  pulpit  was 
everything  in  the  way  of  teaching,  when  there  were 
no  press,  no  books,  there  must  have  been  those  to 
whom  such  lessons  must  have  been  very  charming, 
touching  as  they  did  the  superstitious  fancies  of  the 
time.  Francis  Coster  was  born  in  1 531,  and  died 
in  1 61 9,  aged  eighty-eight  years.  Mr.  Gould  says, 
in  introducing  the  story  : — 

"  The  stories  Coster  tells  are  very  unequal.  There  is 
one  delightful  mediaeval  tale  reproduced  by  him  which  I 
shall  venture  to  relate,  as  it  is  full  of  beauty,  and  inculcates 
a  wholesome  lesson.  There  is  a  ballad  in  German  on  the 
subject,  to  be  found  in  Pocci  and  Gores'  '  Fest  Kalender,' 


MEDIEVAL  PREACHERS.  103 

which  has  been  translated  into  English  and  published  in 
some  Roman  children's  books. 

"The  story  was,  I  believe,  originated  by  Anthony  of 
Sienna,  who  relates  it  in  his  Chronicle  of  the  Dominican 
Order ;  and  it  was  from  him  that  the  preachers  and  writers 
of  the  Middle  Ages  drew  the  incident.  With  the  reader's 
permission,  I  will  tell  the  story  in  my  own  words,  instead  of 
giving  the  stiff  and  dry  record  found  in  Coster. 

"  There  was  once  a  good  priest  who  served  a  Church  in 
Lusitania ;  and  he  had  two  pupils,  little  boys,  who  came  to 
him  daily  to  learn  their  letters,  and  to  be  instructed  in  the 
Latin  tongue. 

"  Now  these  children  were  wont  to  come  early  from 
home,  and  to  assist  at  mass,  before  ever  they  ate  their 
breakfast  or  said  their  lessons.  And  thus  was  each  day 
sanctified  to  them,  and  each  day  saw  them  grow  in  grace 
and  in  favour  with  God  and  man. 

"These  little  ones  were  taught  to  serve  at  the  Holy 
Sacrifice,  and  they  performed  their  parts  with  care  and 
reverence.  They  knelt  and  responded,  they  raised  the 
priest's  chasuble  and  kissed  its  hem,  they  rang  the  bell  at 
the  sanctus  and  the  elevation;  and  all  they  did  they  did 
right  well. 

"  And  when  mass  was  over  they  extinguished  the  altar 
lights  ;  and  then,  taking  their  little  loaf  and  can  of  milk, 
retired  to  a  side  chapel  for  their  breakfast. 

"  One  day  the  elder  lad  said  to  his  master — 

"  '  Good  Father,  who  is  the  strange  child  who  visits  us 
every  morning  when  we  break  our  fast  ?  ' 

"  '  I  know  not,'  answered  the  priest.  And  when  the 
children  asked  the  same  question  day  by  day,  the  old  man 
wondered,  and  said,  '  Of  what  sort  is  he  ?  ' 

" '  He  is  dressed  in  a  white  robe  without  seam,  and  it 
reacheth  from  his  neck  to  his  feet.' 

"  '  Whence  cometh  he  ?  ' 

" '  He  steppeth  down  to  us  suddenly,  as  it  were,  from  the 


104      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

altar.  And  we  asked  him  to  share  our  food  with  us,  and 
that  he  doth  right  wiUingly  every  morning.' 

"  Then  the  priest  wondered  yet  more,  and  he  asked,  *  Are 
there  marks  by  which  I  should  know  him,  were  I  to  see 
him?' 

" '  Yes,  Father ;  he  hath  wounds  in  his  hands  and  feet ; 
and  as  we  give  him  of  our  food  the  blood  flows  forth  and 
moistens  the  bread  in  his  hands,  till  it  blushes  like  a  rose.' 

"  And  when  the  master  heard  this,  a  great  awe  fell  upon 
him,  and  he  was  silent  a  while.  But  at  last  he  said  gravely, 
'  O  my  sons,  know  that  the  Holy  Child,  Jesus,  hath  been 
with  you.  Now  when  He  cometh  again,  say  to  Him, 
"  Thou,  O  Lord,  hast  breakfasted  with  us  full  often  ;  grant 
that  we  brothers  and  our  dear  master  may  sup  with  Thee."' 

"  And  the  children  did  as  the  priest  bade  them.  The 
Child  Jesus  smiled  sweetly  as  they  made  the  request,  and 
replied,  '  Be  it  so ;  on  Thursday  next,  the  day  of  My 
ascension,  ye  shall  sup  with  Me.' 

"So  when  Ascension  Day  arrived,  the  little  ones  came 
very  early  as  usual,  but  they  brought  not  their  loaf,  nor  the 
tin  of  milk.  And  they  assisted  at  mass  as  usual ;  they 
vested  the  priest,  they  lighted  the  tapers,  they  chanted  the 
responds,  they  rang  the  bell.  But  when  the  Pax  Vobiscum 
had  been  said  they  remained  on  their  knees,  kneeling 
behind  the  priest.  And  so  they  gently  fell  asleep  in  Christ, 
and  they,  with  their  dear  master,  sat  down  at  the  marriage 
supper  of  the  Lamb." 

Without  some  such  illustrations  we  could  not  give 
an  adequate  idea  of  the  pulpit  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
for  the  preachers  recited  to  the  people  stories,  and 
traditions  recalled  from  refectory  lectures,  and  by 
kitchen  fires  of  monasteries,  many,  probably,  the 
mere  invention  of  the  cloisters,  but  we  hope  not 
always  the  inventions  of  designing   men,   merely  to 


MEDIAEVAL  PREACHERS.  105 

delude  and  to  hold  in  the  snares  of  designing  priest- 
craft. They  all  seemed,  priests  and  laity,  to  live  on 
such  free-and-easy  terms  with  the  world  of  souls, 
and  nervous,  spiritual,  and  uninformed  natures, 
wholly  innocent  of  all  scientific  principles,  having  no 
proclivities  towards  inductive  reasoning,  that  we 
cannot  undertake  to  say  to  what  extent  they  did  or 
did  not  believe  in  their  own  tales. 

Those  tales  varied  like  national  myths  ;  they  seem 
to  have  been  not  so  much  transmitted  from  monas- 
tery to  monastery,  as  to  have  been  indigenous  to 
many.  Some  of  them  very  likely  were  always 
intended  to  be  a  kind  of  scarcely  veiled  parable  ; 
one  of  the  best  known  is  that  which  passed  into  the 
"Magnum  Speculum  "  from  the  pages  of  St.  Antoninus 
of  Florence.  It  is  the  story  of  a  great  preacher,  the 
fame  he  acquired,  and  whom,  at  last,  he  turned  out  to 
be — and  the  most  cautious  and  cultivated  minds 
need  not  disdain  the  evident  lesson  the  story  tells. 
A  great  preacher  was  expected  at  a  certain  priory 
church,  but  at  the  very  hour  when  the  people 
expected  his  discourse  he  fell  sick — preachers  were 
not  more  ready  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  then, 
than  now  ; — the  prior  was  distressed,  and  knew  not 
what  to  do,  when  at  that  very  moment  there  came 
to  the  door  of  the  priory  a  strange  brother  in  the 
garb  of  the  order.  He  saw  the  distress  of  the  prior 
and  inquired  into  its  cause.  "  Ah  !  "  said  he  very 
piously,  "  you  must  trust  in  the  Lord  ;  I  hope 
that  God  by  me  will  supply  this  want  of  yours.  Let 
me  enter  into  your  library  for  a  {&\^  moments.  You 
need  not  toll  the  bell  longer  than  usual  ;  I  shall 
be   ready."     "  Thanks  !  thanks  !  "  said   the  prior,  as 


io6      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

he  led  the  strange  brother  into  the  hbrary.  Arrived 
there,  he  turned  over  the  "Summa"  of  St.  Thomas, and 
the  works  of  Albert  the  Great  ;  and  in  a  few 
moments  he  was  ready  ;  the  strange  Frater  entered 
the  pulpit ;  it  was  indeed  the  Frater  Diabolus.  He 
talked  wondrously  on  the  joys  of  paradise,  and  the 
pains  of  hell,  and  the  sin  and  the  misery  of  the 
world  ;  and  he  moved  all  present  to  tears  and  com- 
punction by  his  eloquence  ;  but  there  was  a  holy 
man  present  who  knew  him,  and  while  he  wondered, 
he  waited  to  mark  the  result.  After  the  sermon  he 
approached  the  Frater  Diabolus.  "  Oh !  thou 
accursed  one,"  said  he,  "  vile  deceiver,  how  couldst 
thou  take  this  office  upon  thee?"  And,  adjured 
so,  Frater  Diabolus  replied,  "  Think  you  my  discourse 
would  prevent  a  single  soul  from  seeking  eternal 
damnation  ?  Not  so  ;  the  most  finished  eloquence 
and  profoundest  learning  are  worthless  beside  one 
drop  of  unction  ;  there  was  no  unction  in  my  sermon. 
You  see  how  I  have  moved  the  people,  but  they  will 
forget  all,  they  will  practise  nothing,  and  hence  all 
the  words  they  have  heard  will  serve  to  their 
greater  judgment,"  with  which  words  Frater 
Diabolus  vanished.* 

As  much  as  we  insist,  it  was  also  insisted  in  those 
days,  that  the  preacher  should  be  a  builder,  not  of 
words,  but  of  life,  and  of  character  ;  nor  did  he  dis- 
dain to  talk  with  peasants  by  the  wayside,  with 
children  on  the  grassy  knoll,  or  rustic  labourers 
following  the  plough.  One  of  them  said,  "A 
spiritual  pastor,  like  a  real  shepherd,  should  carry 

*  We  have  recited  another,  but  similar  story  of  this  distin- 
guished preacher  in  the  "  Throne  of  Eloquence,"  p.  2>1- 


MEDIJEVAL  PREACHERS.  107 

bread  and  salt  in  a  bag,  that  is,  the  bread  of  good 
hfe  and  discretion  ;  he  should  use  water  for  drink, 
that  is,  living  water  ;  he  should  eat  green  herbs,  that 
is,  have  provision  of  good  examples  ;  he  should  keep 
a  dog  to  guard  the  sheep,  that  is,  a  learned  tongue  ; 
he  should  wear  coarse  raiment,  and  a  leathern  girdle, 
indicating  that  he  despises  earthly  pleasures  and 
subdues  the  flesh  ;  he  should  sleep  under  a  low  roof, 
implying  that  he  has  no  remaining  city,  but  sighs 
after  heaven  ;  he  should  have  straw  for  his  bed,  as 
significative  of  living  an  austere  life,  and  trees  and 
leaves  for  sheets  in  heat,  representing  the  words  of 
Scripture  which  are  his  covering  and  defence  ;  he 
should  have  a  crook  for  a  staff,  as  implying  his 
dependence  on  the  cross  ;  a  pipe  to  play  on  to 
collect  the  flock,  denoting  the  voice  of  praise  and 
prayer ;  and  a  sling  for  the  wolf,  to  signify  the 
justice  with  which  he  may  put  to  flight  the  devil."* 
We  know  of  no  work  which  does  any  justice  to 
the  pulpit  of  the  mediaeval  times,  nor,  indeed,  to  the 
history  of  the  pulpit  of  any  age  ;  the  best  is  that  by 
Dr.  Lenz.f  but  it  is  brief  and  quite  insufficient  ;  and 
innumerable  names  find  no  mention  at  all,  although 
occupying  a  large  share  of  the  attention  of  their 
times.  What  do  we  now  know  of  Berthold  of 
Ratisbon — of  the  age  of  Frederick  II.  of  Germany, 
whose  tomb  is  still,  we  believe,  to  be  seen  at 
Ratisbon,  with  its  inscription,  "  Bertholdus  Magnus 
Predicator  "  ?      We  only  know  that  sixty,  and  some- 


*  "  Bucchius  — The  Book  of  Golden  Conformity."  quoted  in 
"  Compitum." 

t  "  Geschichte  der  Christlichen  Homiletik,  etc.,"  von  C.  H. 
G.  Lenz. 


ic8      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

times  a  hundred  thousand  persons  assembled,  hoping 
to  see  him,  or  to  hear  his  voice  ;  and  that  still,  in 
Bohemia,  a  field  near  Glatz,  where  he  used  to  preach, 
is  called  the  field  of  Berthold  to  this  day.  Great 
preachers  in  those  ages  were  regarded  with  the 
enthusiasm  which  waits  on  great  conquerors — they 
received  the  highest  honours,  and  wealthy  cities  con- 
tended for  the  honour  of  hearing  them.  They  were 
often  great  and  marvellous  missionaries  too,  and  a 
halo  of  splendour  and  holy  mysticism  surrounds  the 
memory  of  such  men  as  St.  Adalbert,  the  Apostle 
of  Prussia,  or  John  Corvino,  the  missionary  to  the 
Tartars,  or  St.  Gall  ;  the  words  of  such  men  were 
so  persuasive  and  eloquent,  that  voices,  it  is  said, 
were  heard  over  the  tops  of  the  tall  mountains,  and 
mournful  elegies  through  the  woods  and  forests  in 
the  silence  of  the  night,  as  if  the  broken  idols  were 
wailing  amidst  the  acclamations  of  the  people  who 
had  cast  them  into  the  fire,  and  into  the  water,  at 
the  call  of  the  preachers.  Such  also  were  the  effects 
which  in  later  years  followed  the  words  of  the  great 
preachers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  as  they  appeared  in 
the  rude,  or  rich  cathedrals,  or  the  market-places, 
and  great  broadways  of  French,  Italian,  or  German 
cities.  It  was  so  with  Bernardine  of  Sienna.  At 
Bologna,  it  is  said,  all  the  dice  tables  were  brought 
out  and  thrown  into  a  vast  fire  in  the  centre  of  the 
square  ;  and  after  his  preaching  in  Florence,  in  the 
great  square  of  Santa  Croce,  the  listeners  erected  a 
monument  on  the  spot,  on  which  was  inscribed  only 
the  name  of  Jesus  ;  and  it  was  so  with  Anthony 
of  Padua,  a  name  associated  in  our  memory  with 
much  superstition,  but  who,  after  preaching  in  Pavia, 


MEDIEVAL  PREACHERS.  109 

burnt,  in  one  fire,  objects  of  licentiousness  to  the 
value  of  two  thousand  pieces  of  gold,  and,  after  his 
sermons  in  Sienna,  Modena,  and  Perugia,  committed 
to  the  flames  immense  piles  of  what  were  termed  the 
Castles  of  Satan  ;  books — "Ovid,"  "  Martial,"  "  Boc- 
caccio,"— and  cards,  ornaments  and  treatises  of  magic 
and  necromancy.  It  is  marvellous  to  hear  of  twenty 
tliousand  persons  assembling  to  hear  him  ;  rising  by 
night,  and  hastening,  by  the  light  of  lanterns,  to 
secure  good  places  in  the  field  in  which  he  was  to 
preach  ;  while  the  shops  of  the  cities  were  closed  and 
all  business  suspended.  We  smile  at  it,  and  perhaps 
do  not  regret  that  we  have  nothing  like  it  now,  or 
only  by  very  remote  resemblance  ;  but  surely  it 
illustrates  the  wonderful  power  of  the  preacher. 
These  preachers  attacked  and  reformed  the  vices  of 
the  ages.  Their  sermons,  like  those  of  Savonarola, 
combated  the  vices  and  the  follies  of  the  times — 
indecent  ceremonies,  ridiculous  dresses,  the  painting 
of  the  face,  the  decorating  of  the  hair  ; — in  many 
ways  they  had  a  faithfulness  which  would  finish  the 
popularity  of  a  great  preacher  now. 

It  will  be  very  possible,  in  referring  to  the  history 
of  the  pulpit  of  the  Middle  Ages,  to  find  much  to 
condemn  or  to  which  to  take  exception  ;  but  the 
pulpit  was  a  great  power,  and  it  was  a  power  because 
it  aimed  at  the  consciences  of  men  Thomas  a 
Kempis  was  surnamed  the  "  Hammer,"  from  the 
force  with  which  he  struck  the  hearts  of  sinners. 
Philip  Neri  preached  a  sermon  on  "  non-residence  " 
before  Pope  Gregory,  and  thirty  bishops,  it  is  said, 
started  to  their  episcopates  the  next  day  ;  they  were 
strange  men,  no  doubt,  often  carried  out  of  them- 


no      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

selves,  even  unto  very  questionable  speeches,  as  St. 
Francis,  who  commenced  a  sermon  at  Spoletto, 
"  Angels,  men,  devils  ; "  bad  taste,  and  we  wonder 
at  it,  but  the  effect  produced  by  the  sermon  was 
not  less  marvellous ;  the  preacher,  we  are  told, 
found  the  whole  city  rent  and  confused,  torn  with 
dissensions  and  enmities,  and  all  parties  by  this 
sermon  were  reunited  in  love,  and  a  band  of  sangui- 
nary robbers  transformed  into  pacific  and  blessed 
men.  Time  would  quite  fail  to  tell  of  these  preachers  ; 
—  of  Fra  Rocco,  a  celebrated  Dominican  preacher, 
a  sort  of  spiritual  Joe  Miller  ;  he  preached  a  cele- 
brated penitential  sermon  on  one  occasion  ;  all  the 
audience  were  in  terror  and  fell  on  their  knees  ; 
while  they  were  showing  every  sign  of  contrition,  he 
cried,  "All  who  are  truly  penitent,  hold  up  your 
hands."  Every  man  in  the  vast  multitude  held  up 
his  hand  ;  then  he  said,  "  Holy  Archangel  Michael, 
thou  who  with  adamantine  sword  standest  at  the 
judgment  seat  of  God,  cut  me  off  every  hand 
which  has  been  held  up  hypocritically."  Every 
hand  dropped  !  Nor  can  we  omit  to  mention  the 
name  of  St.  Bernardine  of  Sienna,  who  imagined 
himself  only  fit  to  preach  in  small  rustic  towns  in 
the  height  of  his  celebrity  ;  of  Bernardine  of  Monte 
Feltro,  who  traversed  Italy  in  all  directions,  and 
travelled  on  foot,  through  snow  and  rain,  over 
rock  and  marsh  ;  of  Jerome  of  St.  Saviour,  also 
one  of  those  marvellous  mystic  men  :  then  there 
was  another  preacher,  his  contemporary,  Aretinus, 
to  whom  one  said,  "  Those  who  hear  Jerome  are 
changed  into  other  men  ;  they  become  devout  in 
manner,  and  contrite  in  spirit ;  those  who  hear  you 


MEDIEVAL  PREACHERS.  Ill 

depart  joyous  and  talkative,  but  they  do  not  correct 
their  ways."  And  Aretinus  replied,  "  I  will  not  deny 
my  poverty  and  his  virtues  :  what  I  find  in  books 
I  bring  forth  with  no  fervour,  nor  do  I  kindle  those 
flames  in  myself  which  I  ought  to  excite  in  others. 
I  am  a  coal,  but  almost  extinct.  How  should  I 
kindle  my  wood  1  But  that  poor  and  simple  man  is 
all  burning,  and  all  the  sparks  of  his  love  kindle  to  a 
flame  the  cold  fuel."  This  was  that  Jerome  of  whom 
it  was  said,  "  Go  and  hear  the  preacher  of  the  best 
sentences,  but  the  worst  rhetoric  ;  gather  the  fruit 
and  neglect  the  leaves  ,  '  and  even  dukes  and  senates 
followed  him  when  his  sermons  were  ended.  We 
wish  that  we  had  a  more  comprehensive  account 
than  has  yet  been  published  of  these  great  preachers 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  Amidst  all  the  abuses  we  are 
compelled  to  see,  more  than  sacred  eloquence,  reli- 
gious power  :  it  is  a  study  in  itself  to  contemplate 
the  studies  of  these  men.  Meditation,  long  medita- 
tion, and  painful  searching  of  Scripture  marked  them 
all,  or  almost  all* 

In  many  other  instances,  however,  we  shall  find 
that  the  ministry  has  been  power  in  proportion  as  it 
has  been  the  work  of  the  conscience  upon  the  con- 
science. This  is  the  truth  of  all  true  preaching  ;  it 
is  a  strange  instrument  for  the  Divine  Spirit  to  play 
on,  "  the  foolishness  of  preaching,"  but  God  does  use 
it  as  a  Divine  instrument.  Like  the  harp,  or  the 
organ,  preachers  are  only  the  subjects  of  the  fingers 


•  The  long  and  curious  account  of  many  of  these  forgotten 
men  in  the  "  Mores  Catholici,  or  Ages  of  Faith,"  is,  of  course, 
by  a  most  intolerant  Papist  ;  but  it  is  very  interesting.  See 
Vol.  ii.,  Book  vi..  Chap.  v. 


112       THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

invisible  to  themselves.  When  Jerome  asked  Gre- 
gory of  Nazianzen  the  meaning  of  a  passage  in  Luke, 
he  referred  him  to  the  exposition  he  would  give  of 
it  in  the  church  ;  and  there  is,  no  doubt,  as  much 
difference  between  the  private  exhortation  and  the 
public  preaching,  as  between  private  and  public 
prayer  ;  the  sense  climbs  higher  and  sinks  deeper. 

One  of  these  preachers  of  the  post-mediseval  times, 
most  remarkable  and  most  worthy  of  imitation,  and 
now,  by  an  admirable  translation,  most  accessible,  is 
the  Father  Segneri ;  he  did  not  indeed  appear 
until  the  seventeenth  century  ;  his  sermons  are  per- 
vaded by  intense  earnestness,  and  justify  the  tradi- 
tion that  he  was  inflamed,  when  young,  by  a  holy 
missionary  ardour  to  follow  in  the  steps  and  career 
of  Francis  Xavier.*  He  was  a  Jesuit,  and  after  he 
was  ordained  a  priest,  while  he  spent  the  half  of 
every  year  in  the  meditative  life  of  a  recluse,  he  gave 
the  other  half  to  the  task  of  traversing  the  towns, 
cities,  and  villages  of  Italy  as  a  home  missionary. 
He  died  in  1694.  He  has  been  called  "the  restorer 
of  Italian  eloquence."  He  certainly  was  a  great 
pulpit  reformer.  He  set  Chrysostom  before  himself 
as  his  model,  but  he  studied  so  closely  as  to  become, 
while  dignified  and  serious,  colloquial  and  easy  in 
his  style  ;  in  an  age  of  great  licentiousness,  he  re- 
buked with  most  remarkable  vigour,  strength,  and 
boldness,  the  sins  of  the  age.  Of  course,  being  a 
Romanist,  the  Protestant  will  find  many  things  in 
these  sermons, — stories,  traditions,  references  to  the 


♦  See  the  edition  in  English,  "  The  Quaresimale  of  P.  Paolo 
Segneri,"  translated  from  the  original  Italian,  by  James  Ford^ 
A  .M.,  Prebendary  of  Exeter  Cathedral.     Three  Vols. 


MEDIEVAL  PREACHERS.  113 

lives  of  the  saints, — which  will  not  only  be  displeasing, 
but  even  false  from  our  point  of  view  ;  but  they  are 
remarkable  pieces  of  faithful  and  firm  handling  of 
the  consciences  of  hearers  ;  they  may  even  be  com- 
mended as  especially  suitable  as  models  for  our  own 
times  ;  there  is  a  very  striking,  happy,  and  impressive 
dealing  with  Scripture  ;  as  with  all  the  great  mediaeval 
preachers,  there  is  remarkable  freedom  too  in  the 
handling  of  Scripture  ;  and  in  the  whole  conduct  of 
the  discourse,  whatever  the  topic  or  text,  these  men 
wandered  with  great  ease  through  innumerable  ways 
branching  out  from  it.  We  admire  Segneri  ;  it  is 
impossible — even  reading,  and  reading  through  a 
translation — not  to  be  carried  away  irresistibly  by 
his  earnestness  ;  he  allows  no  time  for  thought,  he 
permits  to  his  hearers  no  self-complacent  survey  of 
their  own  position,  possessions,  or  attainments  ;  firm 
himself,  and  self-assured  in  every  word,  he  uses  all 
his  words  with  the  power  of  a  master  ;  they  are  like 
lightning  in  the  severity  with  which  they  search  out 
the  subterfuges  of  the  soul,  and  set  its  sins  before  it; 
there  is  tenderness  and  love  too,  but  the  precious  cup 
of  consolation  is  only  offered  after  the  hearer  is 
made  to  drink  of  the  wine  of  astonishment.  Hell 
was  a  great  reality  to  him  ;  his  pictures  and  per- 
sonifications of  hell  were  very  daring  —  as  in 
the  following  passage,  in  which  he  deals  with  a 
well-known  passage  in  Isaiah,  often,  both  by  Pro- 
testant and  Papist  preachers,  misquoted  and  in- 
verted : — 

"  What  then,  after  all,  have  I  this  morning  to  do  but  pour 
forth  two  copious  streams  of  inconsolable  grief  for  the  many 


114      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


souls  who  see  hell  open  before  them,  and  yet  do  not  draw 
back,  but  boldly  press  on  to  launch  themselves  into  its 
flames  ?  Ah,  no  :  stop,  ye  wretched  beings,  for  a  moment ; 
stop  ! — and,  before  plunging  with  a  headlong  leap  into  that 
abyss,  let  me  demand  of  you  in  the  words  of  the  same 
Isaiah —  Which  of  you  can  dwell  with  the  devouring  fire  ? 
Which  of  you  can  dwell  with  everlasting  burnings  1  (xxxiii. 
14,  Vulg.).  Excuse  me,  my  people;  for  this  once  you 
are  not  to  leave  the  church  unless  you  have  first  made 
a  satisfactory  reply  to  my  demand —  Which  of  you  can  dwell 
with  everlasting  burnings  7  What  sayest  thou,  O  lady,  who 
art  so  tender  in  cherishing  thy  flesh  ? — Canst  thou  dwell 
with  everlasting  burnings  ?  Now  thou  canst  not  bear  it 
should  the  point  of  a  needle  at  thy  work  lightly  stain  thy 
delicate  skin.  How  thinkest  thou,  then  ?  Wilt  thou  be 
able  to  endure  those  terrific  engines  by  which  thou  must 
feel  thyself  dismembered,  disjointed,  and  with  an  ever- 
lasting butchery  crushed  into  powder?  Wliat  sayest  thou, 
O  man,  who  art  so  intent  on  providing  for  thy  personal 
comforts  ? — Canst  thou  dzvell  with  everlasting  burnings? 
Now  thou  canst  not  tolerate  the  breath  of  a  poor  man  who 
by  coming  near  thee  in  the  least  offends  thy  organs  of 
smell.  Wilt  thou  be  able  to  stand  those  foul  stenches  by 
which  thou  must  feel  thyself  poisoned,  stifled,  and  with  an 
everlasting  suffocation  pressed  down  to  the  ground  ?  And 
thou,  what  sayest  thou  for  thyself,  O  priest,  who  art  so 
negligent  in  the  discharge  of  thy  duties  ? — Canst  thou 
dwell  with  everlasting  burnings  1  Now  thou  art  not  able  to 
remain  in  the  choir  of  thy  church  a  single  hour  without 
looking  indecently  about  thee,  without  being  restless,  with- 
out indulging  thy  tongue  in  every  kind  of  gossip.  How 
then  does  it  strike  thee?  Wilt  thou  be  able  to  remain 
through  all  the  ages  of  eternity,  I  say  not,  reclining  on 
thy  elegantly  carved  stall,  but  rather  sti etched  out  on  an 
iron  frame-work,  on  a  bed  of  flames,  there  to  be  Ustening 
to   the  demon's  howls  ringing  in  thy  ears?     What  sayest 


MEDIEVAL  PREACHERS.  115 

thou,  O  glutton?  What  sayest  thou,  O  slanderer?  What 
sayest  thou,  O  Ubertine? — thou  young  man,  luxuriating  so 
wantonly  in  all  thy  heart's  desires  ? — Canst  thou  dwell  with 
everlasting  burnings  ?  Alas  !  who,  who  among  us  can  ? 
And  yet  why  do  I  thus  enlarge  on  the  case  of  other 
people  ?  Excuse  me  :  of  myself,  of  myself  I  ought  to 
speak  ;  of  myself,  an  ecclesiastic  it  is  true,  as  cannot  be 
denied  from  my  dress,  and  yet  a  wretched  creature,  so 
unmortified,  so  headstrong,  so  vain,  so  averse  to  that  true 
penitence  which  my  sins  demand  of  me  !  If  I  am  not 
able  to  remain  for  a  short  time  before  the  presence  of  my 
Lord  in  tears  for  my  sins,  if  I  am  so  fond  of  my  own 
ease,  if  I  am  so  studious  of  my  own  reputation,  how  can 
I  hereafter,  wretch  that  I  am,  stand  fixed  for  ever  and  ever 
at  the  feet  of  Lucifer,  the  place  assigned  to  such  as  myself, 
to  such  as,  having  undertaken  to  confer  benefits  on  other 
men  and  been  gifted  accordingly  for  that  purpose  with  so 
much  light  and  knowledge,  and  so  many  endowments,  have 
betrayed  my  vow  by  my  actions?  Ah,  Lord,  have  pity, 
have  pity  !  We  have  sinned ;  we  know  it ;  we  confess  it. 
'  We  have  done  ungodly,  we  have  dealt  unrighteously  in 
all  Thy  ordinances'  (Baruch  ii.  12).  And  therefore  we 
cannot  make  bold  to  ask  Thee  not  to  punish  us.  Punish 
us,  then,  since  we  well  deserve  it.  Reward  the  proud  after 
their  desei-ving  (Ps.  xciv.  2).  Only,  in  Thine  infinite  mercy, 
may  it  please  Thee  not  to  sentence  our  souls  to  hell.  O 
hell,  O  hell,  the  mere  mention  of  thee  is  enough  to  over- 
whelm us  with  horror !  This  is  the  punishment  from 
which,  not  for  our  merit's  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  Thy 
agony,  for  the  sake  of  Thy  bloody  sweat,  we  entreat  Thee 
to  deliver  us.  O  Lord,  correct  me,  but  with  judgment ;  not 
in  Thine  anger,  lest  Thou  bring  me  to  nothing  (Jer.  x.  24). 
Behold  us  willing  to  suffer  in  this  life  the  worst  it  may 
please  Thee  to  bring  upon  us.  Here,  put  us  to  pain ;  here, 
chastise  us  \  here,  lay  'I'hy  rod  upon  us :  '  Consume  us 
here  ;  cut  us  to  pieces  here ;  only  spare  us  in  Eternity  I 


ii6      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

(St.  Augustine).  Send  us  poverty  now,  that  we  may  be 
spared  in  Eternity.  Send  us  reproach  now,  that  we  may 
be  spared  in  Eternity.  Send  us  sickness  now,  that  we 
may  be  spared  in  Eternity.  Send  us  just  as  many  evils  as 
may  please  Thee,  in  this  world,  provided  we  be  spared  for 
ever  in  the  world  to  come — that  we  may  be  spared  in 
Eternity  !  that  we  may  be  spared  in  Eternity  ! " 

This  preacher  had  a  very  impressive  and,  usually, 
a  very  real  and  natural  way  of  turning  the  incidents 
of  the  Old  Testament  to  account  for  the  purpose  of 
alarming  the  conscience. 

"  THE    FALL   OF   JERICHO. 

"  No  one  can  know  for  a  certainty  when  that  time  will  be 
which  God  has  appointed  for  the  exercise  of  a  vengeance 
terrible  in  proportion  as  it  is  delayed.  This  must  depend 
upon  the  secret  disposal  of  those  judgments  which  the 
Father  hath  placed  in  His  oivn  power  (Acts  i.  7).  For 
even  the  very  heathen  could  say,  '  The  gods  have  feet  of 
wool.'  Hence  they  step  so  softly  over  thy  head,  that,  with 
thy  utmost  attention,  thou  art  not  aware  of  their  approach. 
Notwithstanding,  if  with  any  probability  we  may  infer  the 
future  from  the  past,  according  to  the  famous  saying  of 
St.  Jerome,  'Things  future  are  known  by  things  past,'  I 
think  we  may  designate  the  very  hour  with  some  probabiUty 
at  least,  if  not  with  certainty.  Attend,  that  you  may  know 
when  that  hour  will  be.  All  among  you  must  well  re- 
member the  wonderful  manner  in  which  the  city  of  Jericho 
was  assaulted  by  the  soldiers  of  Joshua.  He  had  given 
orders  that,  during  the  space  of  seven  mornings,  they  should 
carry  the  ark  in  circuit  round  the  walls,  that  the  armed 
troops  should  go  before,  that  the  unarmed  people  should 
follow  after,  and  that  the  priests,  every  time  of  their  going 
the  round,  should  cause  the  trumpets  to  sound.     This  was 


MEDIEVAL  PREACHERS.  117 

accordingly  done  !  and  precisely  on  the  seventh  day,  at  the 
sound  of  those  trumpets,  the  walls  fell  down  and  the  city 
was  taken.  Permit  me  now,  in  my  own  way,  to  offer  a 
few  weighty  observations  upon  this  victory,  generally  so 
well  known.  The  first  morning,  when  the  besieged  people 
of  Jericho  beheld  from  the  top  of  their  walls  that  imposing 
array  and  heard  those  trumpets,  what  a  terrible  panic  must 
the  poor  souls  have  suffered  !  They  must  have  fancied 
that  the  soldiers  were  even  already  deploying  for  the  attack, 
even  already  leaping  on  the  ramparts,  even  already  scaling 
the  very  battlements.  But,  when  they  soon  afterwards 
perceiyed  that  all  this  noise  was  followed  by  no  practical 
effect,  they  must  have  begun  to  breathe  a  little  more  freely. 
The  second  morning,  when  they  witnessed  a  like  repetition 
of  the  same  performances,  their  fears  must  have  assumed 
the  form  of  surprise ;  not  one  among  them  being  able  to 
comprehend  what  was  the  meaning  of  this  clamorous  demon- 
stration that  all  ended  in  nothing.  The  third  morning  their 
surprise  must  have  degenerated  into  a  disposition  to  smile, 
as  was  natural  to  people  who  now  knew  by  repeated  proof 
that  the  whole  assault  vented  itself  in  empty  sound.  But 
then  the  fourth  morning,  and  the  fifth,  and  the  sixth,  when 
the  besieged  had  more  thoroughly  recovered  their  spirits  ; 
only  conceive  what  must  have  been  the  laughter,  the 
ridicule,  the  hisses,  and  the  shoutings,  with  which  they 
saluted  the  enemy  from  their  heights.  I  can  quite  realise 
the  scene  to  my  mind.  '  Yes,'  they  in  all  likelihood 
exclaimed,  '  these  fine  trumpets  of  theirs  sound  beautifully. 
Take  notice  of  their  new  invention  for  taking  cities,  not 
by  the  force  of  battering  trains,  but  by  the  effect  of  sound  ! 
Blow  on  merrily  by  all  means  ;  for  while  you  are  blowing, 
we  can  be  dancing.  Why,  what,  in  all  seriousness,  do  you 
mean  by  this  ?  To  frighten  us  out  of  our  wits  by  your 
noise,  when  you  are  unable  to  subdue  us  by  your  valour  ? 
We  are  none  of  those  big,  stupid  birds  who  are  brought 
down  from  their  nests  by  mere  dint  of  clattering  noises. 


n8      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

If  you  have  the  hearts  of  men,  take  the  trumpet  out  of 
your  mouth ;  come  on,  sword  in  hand ;  and  then  we'll 
believe  you.'  Thus  with  every  possible  insult  they  may 
have  cried  aloud  from  their  walls  during  those  days.  But, 
if  at  any  time  their  fear  must  have  been  at  the  lowest  point 
and  their  raillery  at  the  highest,  it  was,  if  I  mistake  not, 
on  the  morning  of  the  seventh  day,  preceded,  as  that  day 
had  been,  by  so  many  circumstances  calculated  to  embolden 
their  minds  under  a  feeling  of  their  security.  And,  behold, 
it  was  on  that  very  morning  that  the  entire  overthrow  of  their 
city  took  place.  At  the  seventh  time,  when  the  priests  blew 
with  the  trumpets  the  wall  fell  down  flat  (Josh.  vi.  i6 — 20). 
Now  you  will  conceive  whether  this  overthrow  was  not  all 
the  more  terrible  from  its  being  the  less  expected.  The 
wretched  inhabitants  find  themselves  with  a  smile  on  their 
lips,  when,  on  a  sudden,  behold  their  bastion  walls  tumbling 
down,  their  towers  falling  headlong,  and  themselves,  too, 
involved  in  the  dreadful  crash.  And  then — what  with  the 
groans  of  some,  who  were  wounded,  of  others,  who  were 
mangled  to  pieces,  of  others,  who  were  smashed  under  the 
ruins — one  simultaneous  universal  outcry  of  distress  must 
have  deafened  the  air  and  affrighted  the  very  stars.  The 
Israelites,  in  the  meantime,  each  soldier  at  his  proper  post, 
pushed  forward  intrepidly  over  the  gaping  breach,  and 
making  their  way  over  the  bodies  of  the  enemy,  buried 
before  they  were  dead,  advanced  with  their  pikes  lowered, 
and  their  swords  drawn.  Taking  different  directions,  they 
penetrated  into  the  private  dwellings,  and  scattered  on 
every  side  blood,  on  every  side  havoc,  on  every  side 
death;  they  quickly  reduced  the  city  to  complete  desola- 
tion. .  .  . 

"  What  was  it  you  wished  to  learn  from  me,  my  dear 
sirs? — the  time  when  destruction  shall  overtake  the  wicked? 
Do  you  know  when  it  will  be  ?  Why,  when  it  overtook 
the  people  of  Jericho,  which  is  tantamount  to  saying  with 
the   prophet    Isaiah,    at   the   time   when   they   were   least 


MEDIJEVAL  PREACHERS.  119 

thinking  about  it,  whose  breaking  cometh  suddenly  at  an 
instant  (Isa.  xxx.  13).  ...  In  the  midst  of  your  merriment 
the  wrath  of  Heaven  shall  fall  on  you ;  and,  when  you 
perceive  how,  all  of  a  sudden,  such  irrecoverable  ruin  has 
overtaken  you,  'Alas!  alas!'  you  will  exclaim,  'we  are 
lost  and  undone  1  See  the  blood,  see  the  slaughter,  see 
the  havoc,  see  the  desolation,  see  the  flames,  see  the 
plagues,  see  the  death ! '  And  amid  such  outcries  as 
these,  stunned  and  stupefied,  you  will  terminate  your  lives, 
condemned,  so  to  speak,  even  before  you  die.  .  .  .  When 
they  shall  say,  Peace  and  safety  {peace  now,  safety  hereafter), 
then  sudden  destruction  cometh  ufon  them  .  .  .  and  they  shall 
not  escape  (i  Thess.  v.  3). 

These  are  very  fair  illustrations  of  the  method  of 
this  great  Whitefield  of  the  Italian  pulpit  ;  here  he 
is  but  little  known,  and  anywhere,  now,  probably  but 
little  read  :  an  ascetic  philosophy  does,  no  doubt, 
pervade  much  of  his  discourse  ;  but  his  sermons  bear 
the  marks  of  that  spiritual  retreat  in  which  he  passed 
so  many  months  of  every  year,  that  life  of  meditation 
without  which  the  life  of  the  preacher  becomes  forced, 
wearied,  unnatural,  and  jaded,  from  the  incessant 
necessity  laid  upon  him.  In  his  cloister,  too,  he 
probably  plumed  his  wings  for  those  high  and  sweet 
meditative  flights  in  which,  again  and  again,  he 
indulges,  and  as  when  he  exclaims,  at  the  close  of 
the  strange  rapture  entitled  TJie  Soul's  Flight  from 
Earth  to  Heaven, — 

"  Let  all  here  present  determine  to  decline  accepting 
whatsoever  the  earth  has  to  offer  us;  and,  Ufting  up  at 
last  our  eyes  to  heaven,  let  us  say,  Glorious  thijigs,  yes 
assuredly,  glorious  things  are  written  of  t/iee,  thou  City  of 
God  I"  (Ps.  Ixxxvii.  3). 


120      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Slight  indeed,  and  quite  inadequate  to  the  wealth  of 
the  subject,  are  these  few  recollections  of  the  pulpit 
in  some  of  the  more  obscure  centuries  of  the  history 
of  the  Church  ;  but  we  have  been  desirous  to  lift  it 
from  that  contempt  with  which  a  too  severe 
Protestantism  has  been  disposed  to  regard  it,  and  it  is 
indeed  to  be  regretted  that,  instead  of  a  few  pages, 
we  are  not  rather  devoting  a  volume  to  disentombing 
from  the  old  cloister  libraries  many  of  the  words  of 
these  old  Fathers.  Let  us  be  just  to  them.  It  was 
from  no  poverty  of  his  own  genius  that  Dr.  Neale,  at 
Sackville  College,  frequently  preached  some  of  these 
ancient  sermons  ;  and  he  reprints  some,  giving  all 
due  acknowledgment  to  the  authorship.  Mr. 
Ashley  has  published  three  volumes  of  very  interest- 
ing resuscitations  and  resurrections,  *  and  has  pre- 
faced each  volume  with  some  slight  account  of  the 
preachers  whose  sermons  he  has  reproduced.  As 
our  readers  come  to  know  these  men  they  will  find 
how  remarkable  they  were  for  wise  simplicity,  and 
for  a  rememberable  brevity. 

Old  Dr.  Burgess  used  to  say  that  sermons  of 
thorough-paced  doctrine  were  those  which  went 
in  at  one  ear  and  out  at  the  other ;  this  was  not 
a  characteristic,  certainly,  of  a  great  many  of  those 
preachers  ;  their  words  were  uttered  to  be  remem- 
bered, and  contain  a  great  many  of  those  attributes 
which  we  have  fondly  imagined  to  be  the  marks 
of    a    later    time.       And,    indeed,    while    we    have 


*"The  Festival  Year  with  Great  Preachers."  By  J.  M. 
Ashley,  B.C.L.,  Incumbent  of  St.  Peter's,  Vere  Street. 

"A  Year  with  Great  Preachers."  By  J.  M.  Ashley,  B.C.L., 
etc.,  etc. 


MEDI^.VAL  PREACHERS.  xzi 

attempted  to  do  a  little  justice  to  these  preachers  of 
the  foreign  cloister,  monastery,  and  church,  we  must 
not  forget  that  we  have  had  also  in  our  own 
country,  and  especially  in  post-mediaeval  times,  those 
who  in  the  same  way  illustrated  the  vocation  of  the 
preacher. 


CHAPTER   V,. 

THE  GREAT  ENGLISH   CARDINAL:*  JOHN 
HENRY  NEWMAN.  \ 

WE  may  fairly  presume  that  no  name  we  could 
select  could  be  better  known  to  every  circle  of 
religious  life  in  England,  than  that  of  Cardinal  New- 
man. He  has  lived  now  fully  in  the  eye  of  public 
opinion  for  many  j^ears,  and  has  been  a  very  distin- 
guished leader  in  some  schools  of  thought.  His  works 
are  manifold,  and  spread  over  a  large  variety  of  fields 
and  subjects.  Reviewer  and  essayist,  poet,  hymn- 
writer,  and  novelist,  historian,  translator,  and  philo- 
sopher—  no  name  in  the  religious  life  of  our  country 
in  our  times  is  more  remarkable.      His  autobiography 

*  The  writer  may  be  permitted  to  refer  to  a  much  more  ex- 
tended attempt  at  an  appreciation  from  his  pen  in  the  Eclectic 
Review,  vol.  vii.,  new  series,  which  also  received  a  most  hearty 
and  gracious  acknowledgment  from  the  Cardinal  himself. 

t  I.  "Newman's  Parochial  Sermons,"  6  vols.  (1835,  1836, 
1843,  1845,  1857). 

2.  "Sermons,  chiefly  on  the  Theory  of  Religious  Behef," 
preached  before  the  University  of  Oxford.  By  J.  H.  Newman. 
1844. 

3.  "Sermons  Bearing  on  Subjects  of  the  Day."  By  J. 
H.  Newman.    1844. 

4.  "  Discourses  Addressed  to  Mixed  Congregations." 
By  J.  H.  Newman,  Priest  of  the  Oratory  of  St.  Philip  Neri. 
1862. 

5.  "Sermons  Preached  on  Various  Occasions."  ByJ.H. 
Newman,  D.D.,  of  the  Oratory  of  St.  Philip  of  Neri.  1870. 


yOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  123 

of  his  mind  and  religious  life  and  opinions  is  a  most 
singular  and  instructive  piece  of  religious  work. 
Dating  his  conversion,  and  his  experimental  know- 
ledge of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  to  Thomas  Scott, 
of  Aston  Sandford,  a  teacher  of  the  lowest  of  the 
Low  Church  school,  John  Henry  Newman  has  passed 
through  a  succession  of  the  phases  and  spheres  of 
thought,  until  for  many  years  he  has  been,  we  suppose, 
the  most  distinguished  father  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
in  our  country  in  our  times.  No  name  we  could 
mention  belonging  to  that  Church  is  such  a  talisman 
of  strength  ;  no  name,  we  suppose,  of  that  Church  is 
more  honoured  and  respected  among  Protestants,  for 
largeness  and  width  of  attainment, — for  manifest 
magnanimity  and  honesty  of  purpose,  associated  with 
such  remarkable  and  invincible  powers  of  casuistry, — 
for  singular  tenacity  of  logical  coherence,  allied  to 
marvellous  adroitness  and  subtlety  of  mind,  related 
also  to  keenness  of  spiritual  and  mystical  insight. 
Most  of  our  great  names  dwarf  themselves  and 
become  pale  and  shadowy  by  any  attempt  at  com- 
parison with  him  ;  whatever  he  does  has  such  a 
power  in  it  that  it  thrills  through  all  the  nerves  and 
fields  of  thought  like  the  shock  from  a  battery  of 
Leyden  jars.  So  it  has  been  with  his  work  on 
"  Justification,"  his  "  Essay  on  Development,"  and  his 
"  Grammar  of  Assent ; "  while  every  essay  he  has 
written  contains,  at  least,  some  nervous  words  which 
set  the  minds  of  thoughtful  readers  upon  a  pathway 
of  new  and  exciting  inquiry.  But  with  all  this  we 
have  nothing  to  do  in  our  present  chapter ;  from  the 
crowd  of  volumes  he  has  given  to  the  press,  we  select 
his  several  volumes  of  sermons.     In  the  Church  of 


124      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Rome  he  has,  we  suppose,  never  attained  the  emi- 
nence which  he  held  as  a  preacher  when  Provost  of 
Oriel,  professor  at  Oxford,  and  Vicar  of  Littlemore  ; 
nay,  the  Church  of  Rome,  in  her  treatment  of  Dr. 
Newman,  her  most  illustrious  accession  from  the 
ranks  of  "  heresy,"  seems  to  show  how  little  she  cares 
for  such  prizes,  and  how  much  more  to  her  is  bitter 
Ultramontanism,  with  its  ambitious  writhing  and 
contortion,  than  the  mediaeval  grandeur,  the  large 
universal  affluence  of  genius,  of  a  man  like  the  self- 
renouncing  father  of  the  Oratory  of  Birmingham. 

We  have  presented  many  models  to  our  readers  ; 
Father  Newman  is  unlike  them  all  ;  he  is  eminently 
a  preacher  for  preachers,  a  minister  to  ministers. 
It  may  be  supposed  that  such  preaching  as  his  is 
good  enough  to  empty  most  chapels  and  churches  in 
two  or  three  months.  In  his  calm  and  most  quiet 
mode  of  delivery,  there  is  nothing  to  give  impetuosity 
and  force  to  thoughts  which  it  takes  a  very  thought- 
ful mind  to  find  to  be  in  any  relation  to  the  subject 
announced  as  the  text.  Transparently  beautiful  as 
is  the  style  of  composition — prose  hovering  on  the 
border-land  of  music — it  is  a  beauty  which  demands 
cultivation  of  mind  for  its  appreciation.  The  very 
texts  of  Scripture  quoted  in  illustration  shine  often  as 
in  new  settings,  and,  while  yielding  rich  instruction, 
do  not  the  less  surprise  in  their  application.  Then 
the  imagination  of  Dr.  Newman  is  singular  ;  it  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  be  the  imagination  of  either  the 
poet  or  the  orator  ;  it  is,  more  frequently  than  not, 
imagination  without  imagery.  He  is  of  imagination, 
we  believe,  all  compact,  but  it  is  the  imagination  of  the 
philosopher — imagination  which  shines  without  the 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  125 

help  of  analogy  ;  it  is  an  imagination  of  pure  insight, 
and  of  a  perception  which  lives  in  abstract  relations. 
None  of  these  characteristics  are  very  favourable  to 
the  creation  of  what  we  call  a  popular  preacher. 
He  talks  in  another  way  sometimes  ;  but  we  speak 
of  the  ordinary  style  of  his  discourse.  And  then,  in 
addition  to  these  characteristics,  his  sermons  are 
steeped  in  an  intensely  devotional  spirit  ;  and, 
probably,  those  which  may  strike  either  hearer  or 
reader  most  are  those  which  seem  so  simple  that  it 
is  as  if  there  was  nothing  in  them.  But  altogether 
we  should  not  expect  that  the  multitude  would  ever 
be  carried  away  by  such  pulpit  performances  as 
these.  A  sacred  reserve  hangs  a  curtain  round  the 
"treatment  of  every  topic.  Here,  in  these  discourses, 
there  is  no  nimble  rushing  at  it,  no  audacity  of  self- 
assertion,  no  intolerant  arrogance  of  self-will  ;  the 
auditors  are  not  charmed  by  being  informed  that  all 
the  ages  have  been  upon  a  wrong  scent,  and  that  the 
right  view  has  just  been  discovered  by  the  present 
preacher,  who  announces  it  here  and  now.  It  is 
perhaps  the  vice  of  Dr.  Newman's  nature,  that  he 
defers  so  anxiously  and  reverently  to  authority  and 
antiquity.  The  lovers  of  the  noisy,  and  the  new, 
certainly  find  little  aliment  from  such  sermons  as  his  ; 
from  first  to  last,  a  tingling  solemnity  of  purpose 
pervades  them,  and  they  read  and  sound  like  the 
utterances  of  a  man  who  has  realised  all  speaking 
and  preaching  to  be  an  infinitely  solemn  and  grave 
affair. 

Now,  with  all  these  drawbacks,  may  we  conceive 
such  a  man  to  be  a  great  preacher  ?  That  must 
depend  very  much  upon  the  character  of  the  mind 


126      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

receiving  the  ministration  ;  for,  indeed,  it  is  a  dread- 
fully solemn  and  serious  thing  to  think  of  innumerable 
characters  who  are  what  we  call  popular  preachers. 
Suppose  we  were  to  attempt  to  sketch  a  gallery  of 
paintings  of  those  whom  we  should  not  like  to  regard 
as  model  preachers, — most  of  whom  would  look  upon 
Newman  as  beneath  the  condescension  of  their  con- 
sideration— who  insult  God,  first,  by  a  form  of 
speech  which  would  be  intolerable,  and  disgraceful, 
if  its  tone  were  adopted  to  any  human  being,  and 
then,  with  magisterial  airs,  proceed  to  lay  down 
truths  never  felt,  but  which  nobody  denies,  with 
abundant  sharpness  of  definition,  the  force  of  which 
they  never  knew  nor  perceived ;  big,  burly,  and 
bumptious,  sounding  and  hollow  as  a  drum,  "  moods 
imperative  in  breeches,"  as  we  have  just  seen  them 
called,  set  apart  to  expound  and  sustain  a  truth  of 
which  they  have  perhaps  no  living  apprehension — a 
word  which,  perhaps,  they  even  seek  to  bring  into 
contempt,  as  if  they  had  taken  a  retainer  for  that 
very  purpose.  Are  there  not  many  of  these  about 
— noisy  elocutionists,  who  fancy  that  souls  are  to  be 
fed  on  wind  .-*  And  are  there  not  many  people  who 
love  to  have  it  so,  and  who  would  fancy  that  in  the 
wonderful  sermons  of  John  Henry  Newman  they 
were  indeed  threshing  chaff,  ignorant  all  the  time 
that  they  themselves  are  filling  themselves  with 
husks  and  draff,  the  appropriate  food  of  swine  ?* 
Our  readers  do  not  need  to  be  informed  that,  as  a 


*  We  some  time  since  heard  of  one  of  these  worthies  who 
actually  commenced  his  prayer  in  a  distinguished  London 
pulpit  by  addressing  God  as  "  O  Ihou  who  alone  hast  power 
to  say  to  us,  Absolvo  te  /  " 


yOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  127 

preacher,  it  was  at  Oxford,  and,  especially  in  the 
University  Church,  Dr.  Newman  was  first  known  as 
a  remarkable  power.  The  church,  when  he  preached, 
was  usually  thronged  by  not  less  than  five  or  six 
hundred  graduates,  besides  the  other  members  of  the 
congregation.  He  preached,  usually,  in  the  after- 
noon ;  the  church  was  suffused,  as  those  who  know 
it  will  remember,  in  the  dim  sepulchral  light  ;  the 
preacher  stood  himself  in  the  shadow,  like  a  being 
who  had  stepped  forth  from  another  world,  a  thin, 
feeble,  spectral-looking  form  ;  his  voice  melodious 
and  yet  powerful  from  its  depths,  as  one  has  said, 
like  the  flow  of  liquid  silver, — no  earthquake,  wind, 
nor  fire, — but  in  truth,  a  "  still  small  voice."  His 
manner  was  as  silent  ;  no  movement  of  the  body, 
scarcely  a  movement  of  the  hand  ;  the  eye  quiet, 
but  full  of  life  ;  nothing  that  looked  like  attempting 
to  preach,  nothing  that  seemed  attempting  to  be  fine  ; 
yet  every  tone,  and  every  word  full  of  conviction, 
piercing  to  the  convictions  of  every  hearer,  and  fold- 
ing the  whole  audience  within  its  compass  of  power. 
Such  was  the  preaching  of  John  Henry  Newman. 
The  audience  was  extraordinary  ;  it  was  composed, 
for  the  most  part,  of  the  members  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished English  University  ;  of  men  who,  of  all 
ranks,  whatever  they  might  be  themselves,  demanded 
thoroughness,  and  who  would  listen  to  nothing  for 
any  length  of  time,  or  for  any  number  of  times, 
which  had  not  the  stamp  of  thoroughness.  No  mere 
voice  would  tell  there,  no  attempt  at  display,  only 
invincible  convictions  ;  and  these  the  whole  Univer- 
sity life  of  the  preacher  eminently  displayed.  His 
transparent  clearness  of  style,  his  elevated  blameless 


128      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

life  assisted  each  other.  His  imagination,  as  we  have 
said,  reveals  and  revels  in  no  rhapsodical  or  highly- 
coloured  utterance ;  he  seems  to  fulfil, — and  he 
especially  did  so  in  the  great  position  he  occupied  in 
those  days, — a  canon  which  he  has  himself  laid  down 
in  his  "  Grammar  of  Assent,"  "  It  is  the  least  par- 
donable fault  in  an  orator  to  fail  in  clearness  of  style, 
and  it  is  the  most  pardonable  fault  of  a  poet."  Let  us 
take  as  illustrations  of  the  style  of  speech  in  those  days 
the  following  ;  and  the  circumstances  of  the  place 
and  audience  surely  must  have  ministered  greatly 
to  the  power  and  impressiveness  of  the  words  : — 

"  THE   INDIVIDUALITY    OF    EVERY    HUMAN    SOUL. 

"  I  say  immortal  souls.  Each  of  those  multitudes  not 
only  had  while  he  was  upon  earth,  but  has  a  soul,  which  did 
in  its  own  time  but  return  to  God  who  gave  it,  and  not 
perish,  and  which  now  lives  unto  Him.  All  those  millions 
upon  millions  of  human  beings  who  ever  trod  the  earth,  and 
saw  the  sun  successively,  are  at  this  very  moment  in  exist- 
ence all  together.  This,  I  think,  you  will  grant,  we  do  not 
duly  realise.  All  those  Canaanites  whom  the  children  of 
Israel  slew,  every  one  of  them  is  somewhere  in  the  universe 
now  at  this  moment,  where  God  has  assigned  him  a  place. 
We  read,  '  They  utterly  destroyed  all  that  was  in  Jericho, 
young  and  old.'  Agiin,  as  to  Ai :  '  So  it  was,  that  all  that 
fell  that  day,  both  of  men  and  women,  were  twelve  thou- 
sand.' Again,  'Joshua  took  Makkedah,  Libnah,  Lakish, 
Eglon,  Hebron,  Debir,  and  smote  them  with  the  edge  of 
the  sword,  and  utterly  destroyed  all  the  souls  that  were 
therein.'  Every  one  of  those  souls  still  lives.  They  had 
their  separate  thoughts  and  feelings  when  on  earth  ;  they 
have  them  now.  They  had  their  likings  and  pursuits  ;  they 
gained  what  they  thought  good,  and  enjoyed  it ;  and  they 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  129 

still  somewhere  or  other  live,  and  what  they  then  did  in  the 
flesh  surely  has  its  influence  upon  their  present  destiny. 
They  live,  reserved  for  a  day  which  is  to  come,  when  all 
nations  shall  stand  before  God. 

"  But  why  should  I  speak  of  the  devoted  nations  of 
Canaan,  when  Scripture  speaks  of  a  wider,  more  compre- 
hensive juds;ment,  and  in  one  place  appears  to  hint  at  the 
present  state  of  awful  waiting  in  which  they  are  who  were 
involved  in  it?  What  an  overwhelming  judgment  was  the 
flood !  All  human  beings  on  the  earth  but  eight  were  cut 
off"  by  it.  That  the  old  world  of  souls  still  lives,  though 
ts  material  tabernacle  was  drowned,  Scripture,  I  say,  signi- 
fies— obscurely,  indeed,  yet  still,  as  it  appears,  certainly. 
St.  Peter  speaks  of  the  'spirits  in  prison,'  that  is  then  in 
prison,  who  had  been  '  disobedient,'  *  when  once  the  long- 
suffering  of  God  waited  in  the  days  of  Noah.'  Those 
many,  many  souls,  who  were  violently  expelled  from  their 
bodies  by  the  waters  of  the  deluge,  were  alive  two  thousand 
years  afterwards,  when  St.  Peter  wrote.  Surely  they  are 
alive  still. 

"  And  so  of  all  the  other  multitudes  we  anywhere  read  of. 
All  the  Jews  who  perished  in  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  still 
live ;  Sennacherib's  army  still  lives ;  Sennacherib  himself 
still  lives ;  all  the  persecutors  of  the  Church  that  ever  were 
are  still  alive.  The  kings  of  Babylon  are  still  alive ;  they 
are  still,  as  they  were  described  by  the  prophet,  weak 
indeed  now,  and  in  '  hell  beneath,'  but  having  an  account 
to  give,  and  waiting  for  the  day  of  summons.  All  who 
have  ever  gained  a  name  in  the  world,  all  the  mighty  men 
of  war  that  ever  were,  all  the  great  statesmen,  all  the  crafty 
counsellors,  all  the  scheming  aspirants,  all  the  reckless 
"adventurers,  all  the  covetous  traders,  all  the  proud  voluptu- 
aries, are  still  in  being,  though  helpless  and  unprofitable. 
Balaam,  Saul,  Joab,  Ahithophel,  good  and  bad,  wise  and 
ignorant,  rich  and  poor,  each  has  his  separate  place,  each 
dwells  by  himself  in  that  sphere  of  light  or  darkness  which 

9 


130      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

he  has  provided  for  himself  here.  What  a  view  this  sheds 
upon  history  !  We  are  accustomed  to  read  it  as  a  tale  or  a 
fiction,  and  we  forget  that  it  concerns  immortal  beings,  who 
cannot  be  swept  away,  who  are  what  they  were,  however 
this  earth  may  change. 

"  And  so,  again,  all  the  names  we  see  written  on  monu- 
ments in  churches  and  churchyards,  all  the  writers  whose 
names  and  works  we  see  in  libraries,  all  the  workmen  who 
raised  the  great  buildings,  far  and  near,  which  are  the 
wonder  of  the  world — they  are  all  in  God's  remembrance, 
they  all  live. 

"  It  is  the  same  with  those  whom  we  ourselves  have  seen, 
who  now  are  departed.  I  do  not  now  speak  of  those  whom 
we  have  known  and  loved.  These  we  cannot  forget ;  we 
cannot  rid  our  memory  of  them ;  but  I  speak  of  all  whom 
we  have  ever  seen  :  it  is  also  true  that  they  live — where, 
we  know  not,  but  live  they  do.  We  may  recollect  when 
children,  perhaps,  once  seeing  a  person,  and  it  is  almost  like 
a  dream  to  us  now  that  we  did.  It  seems  like  an  accident 
which  goes,  and  is  all  over,  like  some  creature  of  the 
moment,  which  has  no  existence  beyond  it.  The  rain  falls, 
and  the  wind  blows ;  and  showers  and  storms  have  no 
existence  beyond  the  time  when  we  felt  them  :  they  are 
nothing  in  themselves.  But  if  we  have  but  once  seen  any 
child  of  Adam,  we  have  seen  an  immortal  soul.  It  has  not 
passed  away  as  a  breeze  or  sunshine,  but  it  lives  ;  it  lives  at 
this  moment  in  one  of  those  many  places,  whether  of  bliss 
or  misery,  in  which  all  souls  are  reserved  until  the  end. 

"  Or  again,  let  us  call  to  mind  those  whom  we  knew  a  little 
better,  though  not  intimately  : — all  who  died  suddenly,  or 
before  their  time,  all  whom  we  have  seen  in  high  health  and 
spirits,  all  whom  we  have  seen  in  circumstances  which  in 
any  way  brought  out  their  characters,  and  gave  them  some 
place  in  our  memories.  They  are  gone  from  our  sight,  but 
they  all  live  still,  each  with  his  own  thoughts ;  they  are 
waiting  for  judgment." 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  131 

We  have  referred  to  Dr.  Newman's  usual  method 
of  selecting  his  subject  from  some  suggestion  in  the 
service  of  the  day  ;  as  an  illustration  we  may  take 
a  passage  from  one  of  the  Advent  Sermons,  on  the 
preparation  for  Christ's  coming.  The  whole  sermon 
is  alive,  but  we  may  take  this  passage. 

"worship  in  winter. 

"  Year  after  year,  as  it  passes,  brings  us  the  same  warn- 
ings again  and  again,  and  none  perhaps  more  impressive 
than  those  with  which  it  comes  to  us  at  this  season.  The 
very  frost  and  cold,  rain  and  gloom,  which  now  befall  us, 
forebode  the  last  dreary  days  of  the  world,  and  in  religious 
hearts  raise  the  thought  of  them.  The  year  is  worn  out ; 
spring,  summer,  autumn,  each  in  turn  have  brought  their 
gifts  and  done  their  utmost ;  but  they  are  over,  and  the  end 
is  come.  All  is  past  and  gone,  all  has  failed,  all  has  sated : 
we  are  tired  of  the  past ;  we  would  not  have  the  seasons 
longer;  and  the  austere  weather  which  succeeds,  though 
ungrateful  to  the  body,  is  in  tone  with  our  feelings,  and 
acceptable.  Such  is  the  frame  of  mind  which  befits  the  end 
of  the  year,  and  such  the  frame  of  mind  which  comes  alike 
on  good  and  bad  at  the  end  of  life.  The  days  have  come 
in  which  they  have  no  pleasure ;  yet  they  would  hardly  be 
young  again,  could  they  be  so  by  wishing  it  Life  is  well 
enough  in  its  way,  but  it  does  not  satisfy.  Thus  the  soul 
is  cast  forward  upon  the  future  ;  and  in  proportion  as  its 
conscience  is  clear,  and  its  perception  keen  and  true,  does 
it  rejoice  solemnly  that  '  the  night  is  far  spent,  the  day  is 
at  hand,'  that  there  are  '  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth '  to 
come,  though  the  former  are  failing  ;  it  will  *  soon  see  the 
King  in  His  beauty,'  and  '  behold  the  land  which  is  very  far 
off.'  These  are  feelings  for  holy  men  in  winter  and  in  age, 
waiting,  in  some  dejection  perhaps,  but  with  comfort  on  the 
whole,  and  calmly,  though  earnestly,  for  the  advent  of  Christ. 


132      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

"And  such  too  are  the  feelings  with  which  we  now  come 
before  Him  in  prayer  day  by  day.  The  season  is  chill  and 
dark,  and  the  breath  of  the  morning  is  damp,  and  worship- 
pers are  few ;  but  all  this  befits  those  who  are  by  profession 
penitents  and  mourners,  watchers  and  pilgrims.  More 
dear  to  them  that  loneliness,  more  cheerful  that  severity, 
and  more  bright  that  gloom,  than  all  those  aids  and  appli- 
ances of  luxury  by  which  men  nowadays  attempt  to  make 
prayer  less  disagreeable  to  them.  True  faith  does  not  covet 
comforts.  It  only  complains  when  it  is  forbidden  to  kneel, 
when  it  reclines  upon  cushions,  is  protected  by  curtains, 
and  encompassed  by  warmth.  Its  only  hardship  is  to  be 
hindered,  or  to  be  ridiculed,  when  it  would  place  itself  as  a 
sinner  before  its  Judge.  They  who  realise  that  awful  day 
when  they  shall  see  Him  face  to  face,  whose  eyes  are  as  a 
flame  of  fire,  will  as  little  bargain  to  pray  pleasantly  now,  as 
they  will  think  of  doing  so  then. 

"One  year  goes,  and  then  another,  but  the  same  warnings 
recur.  The  fro^t  or  the  rain  comes  again ;  the  earth  is 
stripped  of  its  brightness ;  there  is  nothing  to  rejoice  in. 
And  then,  amid  this  unprofitableness  of  earth  and  sky,  the 
well-known  words  return  ;  the  prophet  Isaiah  is  read ;  the 
same  Epistle  and  Gospel,  bidding  us  'awake  out  of  our 
sleep,'  and  welcome  Him  'that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord ; '  the  same  collects,  beseeching  Him  to  prepare  us 
for  judgment.  Oh,  blessed  they  who  obey  these  warning 
voices,  and  look  out  for  Him,  whom  they  have  not  seen, 
because  they  '  love  His  appearing  ! ' " 

When  the  question  is  put.  Who  may  be  regarded 
as  the  greatest  preacher  of  our  age  }  the  answ^er  will 
probably  depend,  in  no  inconsiderable  degree,  upon 
the  mental  or  moral  character  of  the  respondent. 
To  many,  the  name  of  Robertson  of  Brighton  would 
instantly  occur  ;  but  the  field  he  filled  while  living 


JOHN  HENRY  NEIVAIAN.  133 

was  a  mole-hill  to  the  Alps  compared  with  that 
filled  by  Newman  ;  nor  was  it  as  the  mere  utterer 
that  either  the  first  or  second  of  these  eminent 
persons  chiefly  attained  or  held  his  influence. 
Robertson  indeed  had  more,  we  suppose,  of  that  flow 
and  passion  which  makes  the  popular  speaker  ;  but 
in  him  this  perhaps  never  became  oratory.  New- 
man, on  the  other  hand,  is  calm  and  passionless  as 
marble,  at  any  rate  as  an  ascetic.  The  admiration  of 
Robertson,  we  fancy,  must  be  not  a  little  dependent 
upon  a  certain  sceptical  and  rationalistic  taste  in  the 
experience  of  the  reader  ;  and  admiration  for  New- 
man must  be  all  but  utterly  dependent  upon  a  dis- 
position of  the  mind  and  heart  towards  the  certainties 
of  faith.  When  Robertson  was  at  Oxford  he  heard 
Newman  preach  ;  and  it  is  not  possible  to  read  his 
sermons  and  fail  to  see  that,  in  many  instances, 
Robertson's  mode  of  treatment, — mode  of  looking  at 
a  character  or  an  event, — is  greatly  anticipated  in 
Newman's  method  and  style,  so  much  so  that  we  feel 
assured  it  was  Newman's  nature  which  set  Robertson's 
on  fire.  Still,  the  orders  of  mind  and  heart  touched 
will  be  very  different.  We  suppose  the  fame  of  New- 
man's sermons  can  never  be  so  extensive  as  that  of 
Robertson's,  for  they  demand  more.  They  are  sus- 
tained ;  they  are  profoundly,  and  beyond  ordinary 
experience,  experimental  ;  they  are  large  in  their 
knowledge  of  Scripture ;  they  are  uncaptious  and 
unquestioning;  they  are  quiet  even  to  a  fault;  at 
the  same  time  they  abound  in  those  sudden  turns  of 
expression  which  are  insight  and  intuition  ;  but  com- 
paratively few  of  them  are  very  popular.  They  are 
beautiful  often  with  a  beauty  that  absolutely  over- 


134      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

whelms  ;  but  it  is  a  beauty  still  only  perceptible  to 
tired  and  much-tried  natures,  to  minds  which  have 
ached  beneath  the  burden  of  the  long  and  weary 
way  of  knowledge-seeking  and  rest-finding.  Yet  his 
sermons  appeal  to  the  fine  intelligence  of  the  times 
in  which  we  live;  all  of  them  do  this,  and  do  it  in  a 
very  eminent  manner. 

From  the  pulpit  of  our  times  we  have  no  speci- 
mens of  higher  culture  than  in  the  sermons  of  Dr. 
Newman.  We  feel,  while  we  read  or  hear,  that  we 
are  in  contact  with  a  mind  familiar  with  everything 
— familiar  with  the  whole  scope  of  Divine  truth, 
whether  as  taught  in  the  Book  or  illustrated  by 
the  various  ChurcheS; — familiar,  too,  with  all  that 
large  classical  knowledge  and  an  amazingly  inquisi- 
tive mind  bestow.  Protestants,  perhaps,  might  be 
surprised  to  find,  amongst  his  very  latest  sermons, 
one  entitled,  "  Intellect,  the  Instrument  of  Religious 
Training."  And  it,  as  so  many  of  his  sermons, 
shows  distinctly  how  he,  who  has  lived  all  his  life 
like  a  monk,  knows  and  reads  the  tendencies, 
difficulties,  and  characteristics  of  the  mind  of  the 
age.  How  truly  he  says,  in  the  course  of  a  para- 
graph too  lengthy  to  quote  entire,  *'  If  a  man  have 
more  talent,  there  is  the  chance  that  he  will  have 
less  goodness  ;  if  he  be  careful  about  his  religious 
duties,  there  is  the  chance  he  is  behindhand  in 
general  knowledge ;  and,  in  matter  of  fact,  in 
particular  cases,  persons  may  be  found  correct  and 
virtuous  who  are  heavy,  narrow-minded,  and  unin- 
tellectual,  and,  again,  unprincipled  men  who  are 
brilliant  and  amusing  ;  and  thus  you  see  how  that 
particular  temptation  comes  about,  when  boyhood  is 


yOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  135 

past  and  youth  is  opening,  not  only  that  the  soul 
is  plagued  and  tormented  by  the  thousand  tempta- 
tions which  rise  up  within  it,  but  it  is  exposed,  more- 
over, to  this  sophistry  of  the  evil  one,  whispering 
that  duty  and  religion  are  very  right,  indeed 
admirable,  supernatural, — who  doubts  it  ? — but  that 
somehow  or  other  religious  people  are  very  dull  or 
very  tiresome  ;  nay,  that  religion  itself,  after  all,  is 
more  suitable  to  women  and  children  than  to  men. 
Is  it  not  so  that  when  your  mind  began  to  open,  in 
proportion  as  it  opened,  it  was  by  that  very  opening 
made  rebellious  against  what  you  knew  to  be  duty  ? 
In  matter  of  fact,  was  not  your  intellect  in  league 
with  disobedience  ?  Instead  of  uniting  knowledge 
and  religion  as  you  might  have  done,  did  you  not 
set  one  against  the  other  ? "  etc.,  etc. 

This  is  a  strain  of  remark  with  which  Dr. 
Newman's  sermons  abound  ;  and  all  of  them  do  very 
much  address  the  intellect  on  behalf  of  religion — the 
reason,  the  understanding  of  the  hearer.  All  the 
sermons  read  and  ring  with  an  accent  which  seems 
addressed  to  men, —  reading,  thinking,  it  may  be 
suffering,  it  may  be  sinning  men, — but  still  their 
searching  voice  seems  to  address  itself  eminently  to 
men.  At  the  same  time,  a  spirit  of  earnest  expos- 
tulation, as  from  one  who  has  the  right  and 
authority  to  expostulate,  glows  along  many  words. 
What  would  our  Protestant  congregations  in  general 
think  of  a  preacher  who  should  indulge  in  such  a 
tone  of  affectionate  entreaty  as  that  in  the  following 
words  } — 

"  You  have  not  come  near  the  courts  or  the  mansions  of 


136      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

the  great ;  yet  you  ape  the  sins  of  Dives,  while  you  are 
strangers  to  his  refinement.  You  think  it  the  sign  of  a 
gentleman  to  set  yourselves  above  religion,  to  criticise  the 
religious,  and  professors  of  religion,  to  look  at  Catholic  and 
Methodist  with  impartial  contempt,  to  gain  a  smattering  of 
knowledge  on  a  number  of  subjects,  to  dip  into  a  number 
of  frivolous  publications  if  they  are  popular,  to  have  read 
the  latest  novel,  to  have  heard  the  singer,  and  seen  the 
actor  of  the  day,  to  be  up  to  the  news,  to  know  the  names, 
and,  if  so  be,  the  persons  of  public  men,  to  be  able  to  bow 
to  them,  to  walk  up  and  down  the  streets  with  your  heads 
on  high,  and  to  stare  at  whatever  meets  you ; — and  to  say 
and  do  worse  things,  of  which  these  outward  extravagances 
are  but  the  symbol.  And  this  is  what  you  conceive  you 
have  come  upon  earth  for !  The  Creator  made  you,  it 
seems,  O  my  children,  for  this  work  and  office,  to  be  a  bad 
imitation  of  polished  ungodliness,  to  be  a  piece  of  tawdry 
and  faded  finery,  or  a  scent  which  has  lost  its  freshness,  and 
does  but  offend  the  sense  !  Oh  that  you  could  see  how 
absurd  and  base  are  such  pretences  in  the  eyes  of  any  but 
yourselves  !  No  calling  of  life  but  is  honourable ;  no  one 
is  ridiculous  who  acts  suitably  to  his  calling  and  estate  ;  no 
one  who  has  good  sense  and  humility  but  may,  in  any 
station  of  life,  be  truly  well-bred  and  refined;  but  ostenta- 
tion, affectation,  and  ambitious  efforts  are,  in  every  station 
of  life,  high  or  low,  nothing  but  vulgarities.  Put  them  aside, 
despise  them  yourselves,  O  my  very  dear  sons,  whom  I  love, 
and  whom  I  would  fain  serve  !  Oh  that  you  could  feel  that 
you  have  souls  !  Oh  that  you  would  have  mercy  on  your 
souls  !  Oh  that,  before  it  is  too  late,  you  would  betake 
yourselves  to  Him  who  is  the  Source  of  all  that  is  truly  high 
and  magnificent  and  beautiful,  all  that  is  bright  and  pleasant, 
and  secure,  what  you  ignorantly  seek,  in  Him  whom  you  so 
wilfully,  so  awfully  despise  !  " 

We  have  referred  before  to  the  peculiarity  of  Dr. 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN,  137 

Newman's  dealing  with  texts  and  topics,  usually, 
apparently,  finding  the  subject  of  his  discourse  sug- 
gested either  from  one  of  the  Lessons,  the  Gospel, 
or  the  Epistle  for  the  day.  He  usually  extracts 
an  unexpected  lesson  from  it ;  thus  the  text  John  i. 
40,  "  One  of  the  two  which  heard  John  speak  and 
followed  Him  was  Andrew,  Simon  Peter's  brother." 
Such  is  the  foundation  upon  which  we  have  a 
sermon,  natural,  simple,  and  eminently  beautiful,  on 
"  The  World's  Benefactors."  The  subject  comes 
about  in  this  way  :  Very  little  indeed  is  known  of 
Andrew  ;  yet  he  is  represented  as  closely  in  the  con- 
fidence of  Christ,  and  as  the  means  of  the  first  con- 
versions to  Christ — among  others,  Peter.  Andrew 
is  scarcely  known  except  by  name,  while  Peter  has 
held  the  place  of  honour  all  over  the  Church  ;  yet 
Andrew  brought  Peter  to  Christ.  Then  comes  the 
doctrine  from  the  text,  that  those  men  are  not 
necessarily  the  most  useful  men  in  their  generation, 
nor  the  most  favoured  by  God,  who  make  the  most 
noise  in  the  world,  and  who  seem  to  be  principals  in 
the  great  changes  and  events  recorded  in  history. 
The  subject  is  carried  through  a  series  of  ingenious 
illustrations.  This  is  the  operation  in  the  law  of 
God's  government  in  the  introduction  of  temporal 
blessings.  Who  was  the  first  cultivator  of  corn } 
Who  first  discovered  the  medicinal  herbs  .''  Those  who 
first  suggest  the  most  happy  inventions  are  commonly 
supplanted  ;  so  Providence  acts.  A  large  portion  of 
the  Old  Testament  is  written  by  authors  unknown  ; 
so  with  the  liturgies  of  the  Church.  Who  found  out 
the  first  musical  tunes  in  which  we  offer  praise  ? 
Who  raised  the  great  old  fabrics  all  over  the  country 


138      THE    VOCATION  OT  THE  PREACHER. 

in  which  we  worship  ?  Then  follows  the  great 
lesson.  These  things  are  not  to  sadden  nor  vex  us  ; 
they  are  to  reconcile  us  to  the  faith  that  the  triumph 
of  the  truth  in  all  its  forms  is  postponed  for  the  next 
world  :  hidden  are  the  saints  of  God  ;  if  they  are 
known  to  men,  it  is  accidentally,  etc. 

Or  take  his  sermon  on  St.  Luke's  Day,  and  there, 
singularly  enough,  we  have  a  discourse  on  the  danger 
of  accomplishments,  from  Exodus  xxxi.  6,  "  In  the 
hearts  of  all  that  are  wise-hearted  I  have  put 
wisdom,"  because  St.  Luke  differed  from  his  fellow- 
Evangelists  and  disciples  in  having  received  the 
advantages  of  what  is  called  a  liberal  education  ; 
this  is  manifest  in  his  writings,  which  are  superior 
in  composition  to  any  part  of  the  New  Testament, 
excepting  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul.  And  then 
follows  a  most  searching  sermon  to  the  age  :  "  Accom- 
plishments, the  elegant  arts  and  studies,  such  as 
poetry,  literary  composition,  painting,  music,  and  the 
like,  have  a  tendency  to  make  a  man  trifling.  Of 
this  opinion,  and  how  far  it  is  true,  and  how  far  not 
true,"  he  says,  "  I  am  going  to  speak,  being  led  to 
the  consideration  of  it  by  the  known  fact  that  St. 
Luke  was  a  polished  writer,  and  yet  an  Evangelist." 
"  The  danger  of  an  elegant  and  polite  education  is, 
that  it  separates  feeling  and  acting  ;  it  teaches  us 
to  think,  speak,  and  be  affected  aright,  without  forc- 
ing us  to  practise  what  is  right."  This  is  illustrated 
from  the  danger  of  a  large  acquaintance  with  works 
of  fiction.  "  We  have  nothing  to  do,  we  read,  are 
affected,  softened  or  roused,  and  that  is  all ;  we  cool 
again,  nothing  comes  of  it."  "  We  must  not  allow 
refinement  to   stand  in  the   place  of  hardy,  rough- 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  139 

handed  obedience."  "  And  here  I  might  speak  of 
that  entire  reh'gious  system,  miscalled  religious, 
which  makes  Christian  faith  consist,  not  in  the 
honest  and  plain  practice  of  what  is  right,  but  in  the 
luxury  of  excited  religious  feeling,  in  a  mere  medi- 
tating on  our  blessed  Lord,  and  dwelling,  as  in  a 
reverie,  on  what  He  has  done  for  us  ;  for  such  indo- 
lent contemplation  will  no  more  sanctify  a  man,  in 
fact,  than  reading  a  poem  or  listening  to  a  psalm 
tune."  Then  follow  remarks  on  the  dangers  lying  in 
the  art  of  literary  composition,  which  has  a  tendency 
to  make  us  artificial  and  insincere.  "  To  be  always 
attending  to  the  fitness  and  propriety  of  our  words 
is  a  kind  of  acting  ;  and  knowing  what  can  be  said 
on  both  sides  of  a  subject  is  a  main  step  towards 
thinking  one  side  as  good  as  another."  Then 
follows  a  discussion  of  this  principle  carried  into 
religious  conversation — "  talking  on  the  appropriate 
subjects  of  religious  meditation,  trying  to  show 
piety  ;  this  many  persons  consider  the  highest  part 
of  religion,  and  call  it  spiritual  conversation,  the  test 
of  a  spiritual  mind.  I  call,"  he  continues,  "  all 
formal  and  intentional  expression  of  religious  emo- 
tions, all  studied  passionate  discourse,  dissipation,  a 
drain  and  waste  of  our  religious  and  moral  strength 
for  the  pleasure  of  immediate  excitement."  Such  is 
his  method  of  seizing  a  text  and  revolving  it.  A 
fine  instance  we  have  in  the  sermon  called,  "The 
Religious  Use  of  Excited  Feelings,"  from  the 
instance  of  "  The  man  out  of  whom  the  devils  were 
departed  ;  he  besought  Him  that  he  might  be  with 
Him  ;  but  Jesus  sent  him  away,  saying,  Return  to 
thine  own  house,  and  show  how  great  things   God 


140      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

has  done  unto  thee."  It  is  a  most  pathetic  and 
beautiful  sermon,  showing  how  first  earnest,  ardent 
feelings,  which  wait  on  the  early  exercises  of  con- 
science and  reason,  take  away  from  the  beginnings 
of  obedience  its  grievances  ;  and  the  Christian  life 
will  be  in  "  following  on  to  know  the  Lord,"  when 
the  first  feelings  have  died  away,  "  labouring  in 
darkness,  apparently  out  of  the  Saviour's  sight,  in 
the  home  of  your  own  thoughts,  surrounded  by 
sights  of  this  world,  and  showing  forth  His  praise 
among  those  who  are  cold-hearted." 

We  believe  it  will  be  impossible  carefully  to  set 
before  the  mind  any  of  these  sermons  without  feel- 
ing with  what  subtlety  and  power  the  preacher  has 
touched,  and  touches  the  springs  of  life,  and  what 
may  be  called  the  philosophy  of  action.  Many  have 
been  the  able  sermons  from  the  story  of  Balaam  ;  none, 
we  suppose,  more  remarkable  than  that  in  these 
volumes  entitled, "Obedience  without  Love."  Balaam's 
history,  the  preacher  says,  reveals  "  a  man  Divinely 
favoured,  visited,  influenced,  guided,  protected,  emi- 
nently honoured,  illuminated ;  a  man  possessed 
of  an  enlightened  sense  of  duty,  and  of  moral  and 
religious  acquirements,  educated,  high-minded,  con- 
scientious, honourable,  firm  ;  and  yet  on  the  side  of 
God's  enemies,  personally  under  God's  displeasure, 
and  in  the  end,  if  we  go  on  to  that,  the  direct  in- 
strument of  Satan,  and  having  his  portion  with  the 
unbelievers.  I  do  not  think  I  have  materially  over- 
stated any  part  of  this  description."  "  The  solution 
is,  that  Balaam  obeyed  God  from  a  sense  of  its  being 
right  to  do  so,  but  not  from  a  desire  to  please  Him 
from  fear  and  love.     He  had  other  ends,  aims,  wishes 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  141 

of  his  own,  distinct  from  God's  will  and  purpose  ; 
and  he  would  have  effected  these  if  he  could.  His 
endeavour  was,  not  to  please  God,  but  to  please  self 
without  displeasing  God,  and  to  pursue  his  own  ends 
as  far  as  was  consistent  with  his  duty.  You  will 
observe  he  wished  to  go  with  Balak's  messengers, 
only  he  felt  he  ought  not  to  go  ;  and  the  problem 
which  he  attempted  to  solve  was,  how  to  go,  and  yet 
not  offend  God."  Like  so  many  of  the  sermons, 
this  is  full  of  an  instructive,  subtle,  and  searching 
series  of  distinctions. 

But  vain  is  the  work  of  illustration.  It  appears 
to  us  that  every  sermon  is  nearly  equally  rich  in 
some  suggestive  side-light  thrown  upon  the  text, 
which  is  made  to  illuminate,  from  that  point  of  view, 
the  whole  of  the  discourse.  Charles  Kingsley,  in  his 
ungenerous  attack  on  Dr.  Newman  some  years  since, 
was  tolerably  right  in  one  expression.  It  is  not 
likely,  we  suppose,  he  ever  heard  Dr.  Newman 
preach,  otherwise  he  could  never  have  stumbled 
upon  so  utterly  unlike  a  description  of  him  ;  but 
when  he  says  that  each  sermon  was  studiously  pre- 
pared for  the  expression  of  one  word  or  sentence, 
which  was  intended  to  tell  and  carry  the  mind  of  the 
audience,  he  seems  to  us  to  have  been  more  nearly 
right  than  he  himself  knew.  The  text  preached  from 
has  conveyed  to  the  mind  of  the  preacher  one  im- 
pression ;  usually  it  is  a  fresh,  new,  unexpected  one  ; 
and  that,  just  as  in  the  instances  we  have  cited,  is 
insisted  upon  throughout  the  discourse ;  the  hearer 
is  in  no  danger  of  forgetting  it.  Dr.  Newman's 
sermons  belong  to  that  order  which  teaches,  not  the 
diffusion  of  thought  and  illustration  over  many  topics, 


142      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

but  the  gathering  up  all  for  the  purpose  of  elucidating 
and  enforcing  one. 

We  are  not  aware  that  our  age  furnishes  us, 
and  especially  in  our  own  country,  with  any  other 
instance  of  a  preacher  who  has  so  thoroughly  pos- 
sessed himself  of  all  the  knowledge  of  the  schools. 
It  is  as  if  we  had  an  ancient  schoolman  of  the  times 
of  Abelard,  Anselm,  William  of  Ockham,  or  Albert 
the  Great,  in  the  pulpit.  Not  that  the  casuistry  of 
the  preacher  at  all  interferes  with  the  simplicity  of 
his  discourse.  As  we  have  said,  there  is  a  masterly 
clearness  of  style,  also  in  most  instances  a  masterly 
brevity.  It  is  astonishing  that  so  much  can  be  said, 
and  said  to  such  purpose,  in  so  short  a  space.  New- 
man presents  a  very  fair  and  fine  illustration  to  those 
who  demand  short  sermons  as  most  effective  for 
pulpit  ministration  ;  and  great  and  powerful  as  his 
sermons  are,  if  they  do  not  attain  to,  they  certainly 
approach  the  ideal  of  the  Abbe  Mullois,  to  which  we 
have  already  made  considerable  reference.*  There 
is  no  needless  accumulation  of  words  ;  diffuseness  in 
a  sermon  may  result  from  this,  which  is  a  mere 
and  unpardonable  vice;  or  it  may  result  from  copious- 
ness of  description,  what  is  called  word-painting  ; 
and  in  this  Dr.  Newman  never  indulges.  His  illus- 
tration, when  he  uses  it,  shines  with  a  sudden  stroke, 
as  when  he  says — "  This  is  conscience  ;  and  from  the 
nature  of  the  case  its  very  existence  carries  on  our 
mind  to  a  Being  exterior  to  ourselves,  for  else  whence 
did  it  come  ?  and  to  a  Being  superior  to  ourselves, 
else  whence  its  strange  troublesome  peremptoriness  ? 


"  Throne  of  Eloquence,"  p.  357. 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN  143 

As  the  sunshine  implies  the  sun  is  in  the  heavens, 
though  we  see  it  not ;  as  a  knocking  at  our  door  at 
night  implies  the  presence  of  one  outside  in  the  dark, 
who  asks  for  admittance,  so  this  word  within  us, 
not  only  instructs  us  up  to  a  certain  point,  but 
necessarily  raises  our  mind  to  the  idea  of  a  teacher, 
— an  unseen  teacher."  This  is  the  way  in  which  he 
uses  his  illustrations  ;  they  are  numerous,  rapid,  and 
sufficient.  Great  as  might  be  the  preacher's  power 
of  imagination,  we  have  said  it  is  the  imagination  of 
a  philosopher  rather  than  that  of  a  poet  ;  his  most 
eminent  mastership  is  in  the  domain  of  logic.  It  is 
curious  to  know  that  he  used  to  say  of  the  work  of 
his  intimate  friend.  Archbishop  Whately,  that  "his 
'  Logic  '  was  a  most  interesting  book  ;  but  there  was 
one  thing  not  to  be  found  in  it,  and  that  was  logic!'* 
His  sermons  are  far  from  being  illustrations  of 
formal  logic,  yet  in  every  one,  we  believe,  may  be 
traced  a  subtle,  coherent,  logical  unity  and  harmony  ; 
they  are  all  processes  of  proof.  Whatever  idea 
seizes  him  must  give  to  him  an  account  of  itself  It 
seems  as  if  not  a  word  is  put  down,  or  uttered  which 
has  not  been  weighed.  We  know  of  no  preacher 
so  interesting  and  at  the  same  time  so  argumenta- 
tively  coherent.  Hence,  a  Catholic,  and  with  all 
his  love  of  symbolism,  and  the  large  natural  poetic 
furniture  of  his  mind,  we  cannot  speak  of  Dr.  New- 
man as  among  mystics — those  to  whom  their  own 
simple  consciousness,  and  mere  unreason  and  un- 
reasoning intuition  is  sufficient  ;  we  have  often  had 

*  "Mozley's  Reminiscences,  chiefly  of  Oriel  College,"  vol. 
i.  p.  29. 


144      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

occasion  to  say  how  charming  are  the  rays  of  light 
from  such  minds.  In  a  very  real  manner  he  lives, 
moves,  and  has  his  being  in  a  spiritual  world  ;  but 
he  seems  to  have  made  a  perfect  stairway  to  it 
through  the  processes  of  the  understanding.  He  talks 
of  the  most  mystical  and  tingling  truths  like  one  to 
whom  they  have  becothe  accessible  through  deep  and 
thorough  culture ;  or  rather — shall  we  say? — the  faith 
which  he  found  without  demonstration  was  by  him 
taken  as  a  light,  and  followed  back,  through  demon- 
stration after  demonstration,  until  all  its  parts  were 
found  consistent,  essential,  and  coherent  in  the 
nature  of  things  ;  so  that  his  whole  works,  certainly 
all  his  sermons,  constitute  a  kind  of  "  Grammar  of 
Assent,"  a  dealing  with  the  elements  of  the  syntax 
of  truth,  a  conducting  of  the  mind  from  its  own 
nature  into  the  principles  of  revelation.  Perfectly 
invaluable  in  this  way  are  his  sermons  on  the 
"  Theory  of  Religious  Belief,"  in  which  he  teaches 
how  all  men  reason  ;  for  to  reason  is  nothing  more 
than  to  gain  truth  from  former  truth  without  the 
intervention  of  sense,  to  which  brutes  are  limited  ; 
and  he  exemplifies  this  in  the  following  ingenious 
passage,  illustrating  what  he  has  well  discriminated 
as  implicit  and  explicit  reasoning  ;  he  says — 

"  In  the  Epistle  for  this  day  we  have  an  account  of  St. 
Peter,  when  awakened  by  the  angel,  obeying  him  implicitly, 
yet  not  understanding  while  he  obeyed.  He  girt  himself, 
and  bound  on  his  sandals,  and  cast  his  garment  about  him, 
and  went  out  and  followed  him,  yet  wist  not  it  was  true 
which  was  done  by  the  angel,  but  thought  he  saw  a  vision. 
Afterwards,  when  he  was  come  to  himself,  he  said,  '  Now  I 
know  of  a  surety  that  the  Lord  hath  sent  His  angel  and 


y  OHN  HENR  Y  NE  WMA  N.  145 

hath  deUvered  me.'  First  he  acted  spontaneously;  then  he 
contemplated  his  own  acts.  This  may  be  taken  as  an 
illustration  of  the  difference  between  the  more  simple 
faculties  and  operations  of  the  mind  and  that  process  of 
analysing  and  describing  them  which  takes  place  upon 
reflection.  We  not  only  feel  and  think  and  reason,  but  we 
know  that  we  feel  and  think  and,  reason  ;  not  only  know, 
but  can  inspect  and  ascertain  our  thoughts,  feelings,  and 
reasonings ;  not  only  ascertain,  but  describe.  Children,  for 
a  time,  do  not  realise  even  their  material  frames,  or,  as  I 
may  say,  count  their  limbs  ;  but  as  the  mind  opens,  and  is 
cultivated,  the.y  turn  their  attention  to  soul  as  well  as  body, 
they  contemplate  all  they  are,  and  all  they  do,  they  are  no 
longer  beings  of  impulse,  instinct,  conscience,  imagination, 
habit,  or  reason  merely,  but  they  are  able  to  reflect  upon 
their  own  mind,  as  if  it  were  some  external  object  j  they 
reason  upon  their  reasonings." 

This  beautiful  and  cogent  passage  seems  to  be  a 
very  fair  illustration  of  that  which  the  mind  of  this 
great  preacher  is  in  a  very  eminent  degree.  It  illus- 
trates his  structure  and  very  much  of  the  method  and 
style  of  his  preaching  and  teaching.  And  there  is 
nothing  more  remarkable  and  worthy  of  notice  in 
the  sermons  of  Newman  than  their  sustained  tone  of 
solemn,  serious  purpose ;  we  make  this  remark 
because  in  his  numerous  other  works  he  often  ex- 
hibits liveliness  of  wit,  pungency  of  repartee,  and  a 
very  evident  competency  to  use  those  more  carnal 
and  purely  literary  weapons,  which,  in  the  sermons, 
are  entirely  laid  aside.  No  one  at  all  acquainted  with 
his  various  lectures  and  reviews,  extending  over  many 
volumes,  can  doubt  that  it  must  be  by  the  exercise 
of  a  very  sacred  conscientiousness  that  he  abstains 

10 


146      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

from  all  these,  which  may  be  regarded  as  belonging 
to  a  lower  region  ;  and  all  the  sermons  breathe  lofty, 
meditative,  untroubled  repose. 

It  compels  our  very  great  respect,  that  one, 
evidently  so  ready  with  a  trenchant  blade,  so  fond 
of  indulging  even  in  the  very  jocularity  of  lively 
humour,  should  with  such  severity  discriminate 
between  things  that  differ.  Perhaps  our  readers  will 
remember  his  imaginary  lecture  on  John  Bullism,  in 
which  he  shows,  certainly  by  a  most  justifiable  and 
not  altogether  unastonishing  ad  hominem,  in  reply  to 
those  who  are  so  ready  to  prove  that  Rome  has  the 
number  of  the  beast  in  Revelation,  that,  in  reality, 
Queen  Victoria  has  that  number.  Of  course  the 
whole  thing  is  a  joke.  He  says,  "  Gentlemen,  can  it 
surprise  you  to  be  told,  after  such  an  exposition  of 
the  blasphemies  of  England,  that,  astonishing  to  say, 
Queen  Victoria  is  distinctly  pointed  out,  in  the  Book 
of  the  Revelation,  as  having  the  number  of  the 
beast .''  You  will  recollect  that  that  number  is 
666.  Now  she  came  to  the  throne  in  the  year 
'37,  at  which  date  she  was  eighteen  years  old  ; 
multiply,  then,  thirty-seven  by  eighteen,  and  you 
have  the  very  number,  666,  which  is  the  mystical 
emblem  of  the  lawless  king." 

A  volume  might  be  compiled  upon  the  almost 
innumerable  persons  to  whom  has  been  attached  the 
theory  of  the  mystic  number,  666.  Edward  Elliott, 
with  cogent  learning,  fitted  it  on  to  the  Papacy  in 
his  "  Horas  Apocalypticae."  Lord  Macaulay,  when  in 
India,  was  suddenly  attacked  by  an  Englishman,  to 
whom  he  had  never  spoken,  and  whom  he  did  not 
know,  exclaiming,  *  Pray,  Mr.  Macaulay,  do  you   not 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  147 

think  that  Buonaparte  was  the  beast  ? "  "  No,  sir, 
I  cannot  say  that  I  do."  "  Sir,  he  was  the  beast;  I 
can  prove  it ;  I  have  found  the  number  666  in  his 
name:  why,  sir,  if  he  was  not  the  beast,  who  was?" 
"  This  was  a  puzzHng  question,"  says  Macaulay, 
"and  I  am  not  a  httle  vain  of  my  answer.  'Sir,'  said 
I,  '  the  House  of  Commons  is  the  beast.  There  are 
six  hundred  and  fifty-eight  members  of  the  House  ; 
and  these,  with  their  chief  officers — the  three  clerks, 
the  Serjeant  and  his  deputy,  the  chaplain,  the  door- 
keeper, and  the  librarian — make  six  hundred  and 
sixty-six  ! '  "  His  interlocutor,  however,  would  pursue 
his  demonstration,  and  Macaulay  thought  he  regarded 
him  as  a  very  wicked  fellow,  and  believed  that  he 
went  away  determined  to  write  Macaulay 's  name  in 
Tamul,  leaving  out  T.  in  Thomas,  B.  in  Babington,  and 
M.  in  Macaulay,  which  he  says  would  give  to  himself 
the  number  of  this  unfortunate  beast,  and  which  was 
exactly  the  process  by  which  he  had  fixed  the  number 
on  Napoleon,  spelling  the  name  in  Arabic,  and  leav- 
ing out  two  letters. 

The  happiest  illustrations  of  this  dancing  kind  of 
humour  may  be  found  in  Newman's  "  Lectures  on 
University  Subjects  ;"  especially  we  might  refer  to 
the  Lecture  on  Elementary  Studies,  and  the  imagin- 
ary examination  of  Mr.  Brown,  with  the  illustration 
of  the  poetry  of  Mr.  Brown,  a  candidate  for  Univer- 
sity examination  ;  also  to  Mr.  Black's  confession  of 
his  search  after  a  Latin  style.  The  same  power  of 
satire  and  humour  is  abundantly  evident  in  his  "  Loss 
and  Gain,"  the  picture  of  the  young  clergyman, 
amidst  all  his  spiritual  difficulties,  exclaiming,  "  I 
wish  I  knew  what  Christianity  was.      I'm  ready  to  be 


148      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

at  pains  to  seek  it ;  but,  at  present,  God  can  bless  my 
reading  to  my  spiritual  illumination  as  well  as  any- 
thing else.  Saul  sought  his  father's  asses,  and  found 
a  kingdom.  All  in  good  time  ;  when  I've  taken  my 
degree  the  subject  will  properly  come  on  me."  But 
inasmuch  as  the  humorist  and  satirist  are  not  present 
in  Dr,  Newman's  sermons,  we  need  not  do  more 
here  than  admire  the  restraint  which  is  evident  from 
the  presence  of  these  attributes  in  his  other  works. 

This  is  the  more  remarkable  because,  for  so  large 
a  portion  of  his  life,  and  especially  during  the  period 
when  the  published  sermons  were  in  the  course  of 
preaching,  his  time  has  been  passed  in  even  severe 
polemical  conflict,  amidst  misapprehensions  and 
misunderstandings.  His  books  ring  with  the  clash 
of  conflict ;  they  have  all  the  power  and  conscious- 
ness of  a  trained  athlete ;  or  they  are  like  the 
thoroughly  girt  and  well- determined  arrangements  of 
the  knight  in  perfect  panoply,  armed  for  battle ; 
they  are  all,  more  or  less,  intensely  polemical,  and 
they  lack  none  of  those  literary  weapons  which 
genius,  talent,  and  learning  usually  feel  it  to  be 
a  pleasure  to  employ.  Throughout  the  sermons  the 
difference  is  instinctively  perceptible.  It  is  like  step- 
ping from  the  library,  the  lecture-room,  or  the  senate 
house,  into  the  church  :  every  element  of  character 
seems  to  be  at  once  and  instantly  consecrated, 
elevated,  and  bowed  ;  a  purifying  breath  seems  to 
pervade  every  word ;  the  holy  mountains  are  climbed, 
and  the  sacred  Church  is  reached  far  up,  amidst 
serener  heights  and  airs  ;  the  fine  Damascus  blade  of 
wit,  the  polished  mail  of  worldly  lore,  are  left  behind 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  and  everything  in  the  preacher 


JOHN  HENR  Y  NE  WMA N.  i/] 9 

seems  to  say  to  those  other  manifold  powers  and  pur- 
suits in  the  which  he  is  so  accomplished  a  master, 
"  Tarry  ye  here,  while  I  go  to  pray  yonder." 

We  cannot  remember  another  instance  of  a 
remarkable  man  leading  two  lives  so  absolutely 
separate  and  apart.  Most  men's  labours  permeate, 
interpenetrate,  and  almost  fill,  every  other  depart- 
ment of  labour.  It  is  almost  inevitable  that  it 
should  be  so.  The  preacher  who  spends  his  week 
in  avocations  literary  or  political  is  in  danger  of 
making  the  sermon  of  the  Sabbath  bear  a  part  of 
the  toil ;  in  the  sermon  and  the  service  we  miss 
repose.  And  this  is  a  very  chief  characteristic  of 
these  sermons — repose.  As  we  read,  we  seem  to 
be  borne  through  serene  airs  ;  and  in  the  clearness 
of  the  air,  the  forms  and  thoughts  which  had  seemed 
obscure  take  palpability  and  shape, — an  element 
this  which  also  is  so  wanting  to  many  of  the  sermons 
and  preachers  of  our  time.  Dr.  Newman  says — 
"  From  the  age  of  fifteen,  dogma  has  been  the 
fundamental  principle  of  my  religion.  I  know  no 
other  religion  ;  I  cannot  enter  into  the  idea  of  any 
other  sort  of  religion  ;  religion  as  a  mere  sentiment 
is  to  me  a  dream  and  a  mockery."  Certainly,  if 
the  mind  can  repose  on  dogma,  it  must  impart  a 
wonderful  calm  to  character  ;  and  Newman's  nature 
must  assuredly  be  one  of  the  most  restless  and 
inquisitive, — one  of  the  farthest  removed,  we  should 
say,  from  constitutional  satisfaction,  the  Church  has 
ever  known.  The  difficulty  with  such  natures  is  to 
discover,  or  apprehend,  the  dogma  which  satisfies. 
Of  this,  however,  we  may  be  certain,  that  the  pulpit, 
— that  place  which  is  set  apart  for  the  residence  of  a 


150      THu^:    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

mind  and  heart  prepared  to  assist  the  devout  aspira- 
tions of  souls  desirous  of  rising  to  reHgious  truth, 
both  of  hfe  and  form, — this  certainly  is  not  the 
place  for  men  to  indulge  themselves  in  such  specu- 
lations as  are,  perhaps,  even  to  themselves  unsolved, 
or  such  literary  vanities  as  may  be  either  the 
amusements,  or  the  necessary  occupations  of  other 
times  and  places.  To  help  hearts  to  rest,  to  con- 
duct pilgrim  feet  to  refreshing  Pisgah-views  from 
mountains  of  promise,  to  make  clear  and  authentic 
the  voices  which  roll  from  the  Horebs  and  Sinais  of 
revelation  and  the  soul — these  are  surely  the 
purposes  for  which  such  a  building  as  the  pulpit  was 
originally  designed.  The  extent  to  which  a  preacher 
is  likely  to  fulfil  this  claim  upon  his  character  must 
depend  upon  the  repose  he  has  in  his  own  views, 
and  their  essential  elevation. 

Dr.  Newman  assures  us  how,  from  a  very  early 
period  of  his  life,  the  magnificent  philosophy  of  the 
earliest  ages  of  the  Church  came  like  music  to  his 
inward  ear ;  how,  early,  he  learnt  that  the  whole 
exterior  world,  physical  and  historical,  was  but  the 
outward  manifestation  of  realities  greater  than  itself, 
and  how  all  nature  was  a  parable.  We  have  said  that, 
in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  Dr.  Newman  is  not  a 
mystic,  because  mysticism  implies  a  sense  of  light 
— luminousness  without  distinctness,  shape,  or  har- 
monious coherence,  as  he  has  himself  discriminated 
between  mystery  and  revelation.  A  revelation  is 
religious  doctrine  viewed  on  its  illuminated  side ; 
a  mystery  is  the  self-same  doctrine  viewed  on 
the  side  unilluminated.  So,  if  we  may  distinguish 
between  the  luminous  and  the  illuminated  (and  great 


yOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  151 

is  the  distinction  surely  between  luminous  ether  and 
an  illuminated  room),  then  the  mind  of  the  mystic 
may  be  spoken  of  as  a  luminous  mind  ;  his 
apprehensions  have  not  related  themselves  to  any 
method  in  the  understanding.  In  this  sense  Newman 
is  certainly  not  a  mystic  ;  yet  many  of  his  views, 
through  long  years,  are  of  that  lofty,  even  mystical 
order,  in  which  the  soul  seems  to  sweep  through 
worlds  of  certain  existence,  yet  stretching  so  far 
beyond  the  ordinary  range  of  ordinary  apprehension. 
What  must  Tyndall,  Huxley,  Grove,  and  such  other 
savants,  think  of  a  man  like  this  ?  Most  of  us,  we 
know,  they  dismiss,  with  a  breath,  to  the  limbo  of 
vanity,  and  purgatory  of  fools  ;  but  here  is  a  man 
not  inferior  to  any  of  them  (how  far  superior  to  any 
in  logical  grasp !),  who  has  been  quite  accustomed  to 
discriminate  amidst  the  worlds  of  phenomena,  who 
tells  us  of  the  doctrines  he  definitely  holds  about 
angels,  considering  them  as  the  real  causes  of  motion, 
light,  and  life,  and  those  elementary  principles  of  the 
physical  universe  which  suggest  to  us  the  notion  of 
cause  and  effect,  and  what  are  called  the  laws  of 
nature.     Of  the  angels  he  says, 

"  ANGELS. 

"  Every  breath  of  air  and  ray  of  light  and  heat, 
every  beautiful  prospect,  is,  as  it  were,  the  skirts 
of  their  garments,  the  waving  of  the  robes  of  those 
whose  faces  see  God."  And  he  goes  on,  "  And  I  put 
it  to  any  one  whether  it  is  not  as  philosophical  and 
as  full  of  intellectual  enjoyment  to  refer  the  move- 
ments of  the  natural  world  to  them,  as  to  attempt 
to  explain  them  by  certain  theories  of  science  }     I 


152      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

do  not  pretend  to  say,"  he  continues,  "  that  we  are 
told  in  Scripture  what  matter  is,  but  I  affirm  that 
as  our  souls  move  our  bodies,  be  our  bodies  what 
they  may,  so  there  are  spiritual  intelligences  which 
move  those  wonderful  and  vast  portions  of  the 
natural  world  which  seem  to  be  inanimate  ;  and  as 
the  gestures,  speech,  and  expressive  countenance 
of  our  friends  around  us  enable  us  to  hold  intercourse 
with  them,  so  in  the  motions  of  universal  nature,  in 
the  interchange  of  day  and  night,  summer  and 
winter,  wind  and  storm,  fulfilling  His  word,  we  are 
reminded  of  the  blessed  and  beautiful  angels." 

These  remarks,  and  others  of  a  like  kind,  are  from 
a  glowing  discourse  on  the  "  Powers  of  Nature."  It 
shines  with  that  rich  and  unadorned  magnificence  of 
language  and  illustration  so  common  in  these  volumes. 
In  his  "  Apologia,"  he  distinctly  intimates  how,  for 
holding  such  views,  he  has  apparently  been  charged 
with  fanaticism.  "  I  am  aware,"  he  says,  "  that  what 
I  have  been  saying  will  with  many  men  be  doing 
credit  to  my  imagination  at  the  expense  of  my 
judgment.  Hippoclydes  does  not  care.  I  am  not 
setting  myself  up  as  a  pattern  of  good  sense,  or 
anything  else." 

But  we  have  dwelt  thus  at  length  only  for  the 
purpose  of  pointing  to  that  assured  scenery  of  sus- 
taining power  and  repose  into  which  such  a  nature 
and  faith  as  that  we  are  considering  can  instantly 
transfer  itself,  and  in  such  a  transference  find,  not 
only  its  own  tranquillity,  but  the  means  of  pene- 
trating all  its  influences  with  a  like  tranquil  power. 
After  all,  we  suppose  it  is  simply  the  difference  be- 
tween  rationalism    and    faith — faith    which  reaches 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  153 

forth  after,  and  embraces  what  is  beyond  the  mind. 
As  he  well  says,  "  Rationalism  takes  the  words  of 
Scripture  as  signs  of  ideas;  faith,  of  things  or  realities." 
And  it  is  manifest  how  different  must  be  the  effect 
upon  the  mind,  heart,  and  character  as  influenced 
by  one  or  the  other  of  these  persuasions,  as  different 
as  are  the  impressions  when  we  lift  a  telescope,  or  take 
the  hand  of  a  friend,  when  we  converse  with  a  man, 
or  examine  a  steam  engine.  The  way  of  rationalism 
is  to  conduct  us  into  a  universe  of  ideas,  or  powers; 
the  way  of  faith  is  to  conduct  us  into  a  kingdom  of 
persons.  This  constitutes,  to  those  who  can  admire 
them,  one  of  the  great  charms  of  Newman's  dis- 
courses ;  and  this .  arises  from  the  fact  that  it  is  in 
the  tendency  of  such  a  scheme  of  preaching  as  we 
find  in  his  volumes,  to  rest  upon,  and  to  unfold  the 
principles  of  dogma  ;  and  dogma  itself  is  not  only 
repose  to  the  spirit  able  to  apprehend  it,  but  is,  we 
shall  maintain,  the  fitting  instrument  and  word  for 
pulpit  ministration.  The  church  is  not  the  place 
for  inquiry,  but  for  rest. 

In  our  sketches  of  the  men  of  the  pulpit,  it  has 
been  often  our  way  to  select  as  illustrations  those 
compact  words  and  sentences  which  serve  as  indica- 
tions of  the  preacher's  mode  of  looking  at  truth,  at 
the  same  time  that  they  illustrate  his  own  mental 
peculiarity  and  structure.  Aphorism  is  not  the 
method  of  this  preacher's  mind.  Epigram  in  the 
pulpit  he  seems  carefully  to  avoid  ;  it  would  be, 
perhaps,  regarded  by  him  as  partaking  too  much  of 
flippancy  ;  he  avoids  any  approach  to  a  style  calcu- 
lated to  "haunt,  to  startle,  and  waylay."  Yet,  from 
such   a   mind    as   his,  it  is  impossible  but  that   we 


154      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

should  receive  many  concentrated  and  suggestive 
words,  like  texts  which  serve  to  exhibit  the  nature 
of  the  writer's  faith  and  creed.  Let  us  select  a 
few — 

NEWMANANA. 

Prayer. — "As  speech  is  the  organ  of  human  society,  and 
the  means  of  human  civilisation,  so  is  prayer  the  instrument 
of  Divine  fellowship  and  Divine  training." 

A  Sceptical  Believer. — "  The  next  world  is  not  a  reality 
to  him ;  it  only  exists  in  his  mind  in  the  form  of  certain 
conclusions  from  certain  reasonings  ;  it  is  but  an  inference, 
and  never  can  be  more  ;  never  can  be  present  to  his  mind, 
until  he  acts  instead  of  arguing." 

A  Word  to  our  Age. — "  Pride  in  things  visible  leads  to 
pride  in  things  unseen." 

The  Ve?itures  of  Faith. — "  Man  has  confidence  in  man  ; 
he  trusts  to  the  credit  of  his  neighbour ;  but  Christians  do 
not  risk  largely  upon  their  Saviour's  word,  and  this  is  the 
one  thing  they  have  to  do." 

Fatth  and  Love. — "  Faith  at  most  but  makes  a  hero,  but 
love  makes  a  saint.  Faith  can  but  put  us  above  the  world, 
but  love  brings  us  beneath  God's  throne.  Faith  can  but 
make  us  sober,  but  love  makes  us  happy.  By  faith  we  give 
up  this  world,  but  by  love  we  reach  into  the  next  world, 
and  distaste  for  the  world  is  quite  a  distinct  thing  from  the 
spirit  of  love." 

Ifork. — "  No  man  is  given  to  see  his  work  through. 
'Man  goeth  forth  unto  his  work,  and  to  his  labour  until 
the  evening,'  but  the  evening  falls  before  it  is  done.  There 
was  One  alone  who  began,  and  finished,  and  died." 

Moral  Certainty. — "  We  do  not  dispense  with  clocks 
because  from  time  to  time  they  go  wrong,  and  tell  untruly. 
A  clock,  organically  considered,  may  be  perfect,  yet  it  may 
require  regulating.  Till  that  needful  work  is  done,  the 
moment  hand  may  mark  the  half-minute  when  the  minute 


yOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  155 

hand  is  at  the  quarter-past,  and  the  hour  hand  at  noon,  and 
the  quarter  bell  strikes  the  three-quarters,  and  the  hour  bell 
strikes  four,  while  the  sun-dial  again  tells  two  o'clock.  The 
sense  of  certitude  may  be  called  the  bell  of  the  intellect ; 
and  that  it  strikes  when  it  should  not  is  a  proof  that  the 
clock  is  out  of  order,  no  proof  that  the  bell  will  be  un- 
trustworthy and  useless  when  it  comes  to  us  adjusted  and 
regulated  from  the  hands  of  the  clockmaker." 

The  Sufferitigs  of  Christ. — "  I  say,  it  was  not  the  body 
that  suffered,  but  the  soul  in  the  body.  It  was  the  soul,  and 
not  the  body,  which  was  the  seat  of  the  sufferings  of  the 
literal  Word.  Consider,  there  is  no  pain,  and  there  is  no 
kind  of  inward  sensibility.  A  tree,  for  instance,  etc.  But 
wherever  this  gift  of  an  immaterial  principle  is  found,  there 
pain  is  possible,  and  greater  pain  according  to  the  quality 
of  the  gift.  This  it  is  that  makes  pain  so  trying ;  that  is, 
that  we  cannot  help  thinking  of  it  while  we  suffer  it,  and  pain 
is  to  be  measured  by  the  power  of  realising  it.  But  Christ's 
mind  was  its  own  centre,  and  was  never  in  the  slightest 
degree  thrown  off  its  heavenly  and  most  perfect  balance." 

Flausibility. — "Balaam  is  a  most  conspicuous  instance  of 
a  double  mind ;  he  has  a  plausible  reason  for  whatever  he 
does.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  have  good  excuses,  and  another 
to  have  good  motives." 

Jacob  and  Abraham. — "  What  then  was  Jacob's  distin- 
guishing grace,  as  faith  was  Abraham's  ?  I  suppose  thank- 
fulness. Abraham  appears  ever  to  have  been  looking 
forward  in  hope,  Jacob  looking  back  in  memory." 

"  Sinful  Feelings  and  passions  generally  take  upon  them- 
selves the  semblance  of  reason,  and  affect  to  argue." 

Saints  and  Martyrs. — "  Every  age  is  not  the  age  of  saints, 
but  no  age  is  not  the  age  of  martyrs." 

The  Church  Militant  in  the  Church  Triumphant. — 
"  Though  thou  art  in  a  body  of  flesh,  a  member  of  this 
world,  thou  hast  but  to  kneel  down  reverently  in  prayer,  and 
thou  art  at  once  in  the  society  of  saints  and  angels.  Wherever 


156      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

thou  art,  thou  canst,  through  God's  incomprehensible  mercy, 
in  a  moment  bring  thyself  into  the  midst  of  God's  holy 
Church  invisible,  and  receive  secretly  that  aid  the  very 
thought  of  which  is  a  present  sensible  blessing.  Art  thou 
afiflicted?  thou  canst  pray.  Art  thou  merry?  thou  canst  sing 
psalms.  Art  thou  lonely?  does  the  day  run  heavily?  fall 
on  thy  knees,  and  thy  thoughts  are  at  once  relieved  by  the 
idea  and  by  the  reality  of  thy  unseen  companions.  Art 
thou  tempted  to  sin  ?  think  steadily  of  those  who  perchance 
witness  thy  doings  from  God's  secret  dwelling-place.  Hast 
thou  lost  friends  ?  reaUse  them  by  faith.  Art  thou  slandered  ? 
thou  hast  the  praise  of  angels.  Art  thou  under  trial  ?  thou 
hast  their  sympathy." 

What  do  you  mean  by  the  Church  ? — "  The  Church  is  a 
collection  of  souls  brought  together  in  one  by  God's  secret 
grace,  though  that  grace  comes  to  them  through  visible  in- 
struments, and  unites  them  to  a  visible  hierarchy  ;  what  is 
seen  is  not  the  whole  of  the  Church,  but  the  visible  part  of 
it.  When  we  say  that  Christ  loves  His  Church,  we  mean 
that  He  loves  nothing  of  earthly  nature,  but  the  fruits  of 
His  own  grace." 

We  have  alluded  to  the  know^ledge  of  Scripture 
displayed  in  these  discourses ;  sometimes  this  is 
illustrated  in  the  text  chosen,  although,  as  w^e  said 
above,  it  does  not  follow  always  that  the  text,  even 
when  most  happy,  is  to  be  especially  discussed  and 
elucidated.  Thus  the  sermon  to  which  we  referred 
at  the  commencement  of  this  chapter,  on  "  Intellect 
the  Instrument  of  Religious  Training,"  is  a  sermon 
preached  on  St.  Augustine's  Day — of  course  a  very 
great  day  in  the  Romish  Calendar, — considering  who 
St.  Augustine  was,  and  his  immense  influence,  dis- 
tancing, perhaps,  every  other  uninspired  name  in 
the   history  of  the  Christian  Church,  and   that   this 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  157 

great  luminary  of  all  ages  was  really  saved  instru- 
mentally  by  the  prayers  of  his  beautiful  and  wonder- 
ful mother  Monica.  There  was  great  pathos  in  that 
text,  as  the  indication  of  the  topic,  "  And  when  He 
came  nigh  to  the  gate  of  the  city,  behold  a  dead 
man  was  carried  out,  the  only  son  of  his  mother, 
and  she  was  a  widow."  Then  Augustine  becomes 
the  type  of  noble,  intellectual,  but  unconverted 
youfh  of  all  time,  generation  after  generation,  age 
after  age  ;  and  still  Augustine  rushes  forth  again  and 
again,  with  his  young  ambition,  and  his  intellectual 
energy,  and  his  turbulent  appetites,  educated,  yet 
untaught ;  and  still  again  and  again  the  Church 
weeps  like  Monica.  From  this  hint  the  preacher 
passes  on  through  a  succession  of  magnificent  ex- 
postulations with  the  proud  young  intelligence  averse 
to  a  religious  life.  But  we  should  have  to  travel 
too  long  for  our  present  chapter  were  we,  at  any 
length,  to  dwell  upon  the  happiness  we  have  merely 
indicated,  the  textual  fitness  and  relation  between 
text  and  topic  of  discourse.  The  style  of  treatment 
is  much  in  harmony  with  the  old  Church  usage  ; 
and,  perhaps  it  must  be  admitted,  there  is  something 
quite  false  in  the  way  in  which  texts  have  often 
been  treated  by  teachers ;  words,  single  words, 
beaten,  hammered  out,  stretched,  made  to  bear  the 
burden  of  innumerable  divisions,  branching  out 
through  interminable  roots  or  boughs.  By  Dr. 
Newman  all  division  is  disdained,  excepting  the 
natural  divisions  of  the  particular  thought,  for  it  is 
a  subject  which  the  text  reveals.  "  Thou,  God,  seest 
me,"  is  the  text  for  a  sermon  on  a  particular  pro- 
vidence, as  revealed  in  the  gospel.     "  They  say  unto 


158      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Him,  We  are  able,"  furnishes  forth  the  subject  of 
the  "  Ventures  of  Faith."  "  Hath  raised  us  up  to- 
gether, and  made  us  sit  together  in  heavenly  places 
in  Christ  Jesus,"  gives  the  beautiful  text  for  the 
sermon  entitled  "  The  Church  a  Home  for  the 
Lonely."  "  And  He  went  down  with  them  and 
came  to  Nazareth,  and  was  subject  unto  them," 
gives  to  us  "  Omnipotence  in  Bonds."  And  so  we 
might  go  on. 

It  would  be  no  easy  matter  to  generalise  the  work 
of  Dr.  Newman.  The  apprehension  of  his  greatness 
must  depend  very  much  upon  the  mental  and  moral 
structure  of  the  reader's  mind.  Some  eminent 
preachers  will  very  naturally  commend  themselvi 
to  any  order  of  intelligence  ;  we  cannot  read  witt 
out  saying.  This  is  clever,  this  is  brilliant,  this  is  ver^ 
happy,  this  is  instructive.  On  the  contrary,  we  have 
known  some  who  have  read  the  sermons  of  Newman, 
unable  to  discover  any  marks  of  pre-eminent  ex- 
cellence ;  they  are  so  quiet,  their  beauty  is  so  orderly, 
they  are  so  unconscious  ;  it  is  like  finding  out  the 
wonders  of  a  heath  or  lane.  They  are  laden  with 
beauties,  but  they  require  a  reverent  and  cultivated 
sympathy  for  their  apprehension  ;  then  they  will  be 
seen  to  abound  with  strokes  of  pathos,  fine  delinea- 
tions of  character,  clear  and  most  penetrating 
analyses,  bold,  far-reaching,  and  most  magnificent 
views,  and  an  astonishingly  ample  knowledge  of 
Scripture.  With  this,  however,  it  must  be  confessed, 
there  is  little  of  what  may  be  called  the  age-spirit, 
not  a  word  which  approaches  the  confines  of 
rationalism, — all  that  unconquered  Canaan  is  sur- 
veyed  only  for  the  purpose  of  conquest.      On    the 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  159 

other  hand,  throughout  the  sermons,  we  do  not 
remember  a  syllable  expressing  contempt  for  any 
really  serious  thought,  person,  or  thing  ;  and  this 
Ascetic — for  as  such  we  suppose  we  must  regard  the 
preacher — is  full  of  human  life  ;  there  is  no  humour, 
no  dancing  play  of  words,  not  a  line  which  looks 
like  word-painting ;  the  most  unsensational  of  all 
preachers,  we  should  think,  that  ever  set  a  mark 
upon  an  age  or  language.  We  can  believe  in  his 
consecration.  We  hope  wisdom  is  justified  in  many 
of  her  children.  It  is  no  part  of  our  education  or 
purpose  to  confine  our  homage  to  one  order  ;  but  a 
soul  wrapped  up  in  its  purposes,  and  those  Divine 
ones,  untouched  by  that  vanity,  that  fussiness,  which 
we  so  often  notice  appertaining  to  men,  and  to  some 
eminent  preachers,  who  seem  to  be  saying  wherever 
they  may  be,  "  Do,  for  goodness'  sake,  look  at  me  " 
— a  mind  happy  and  luminous  in  its  own  repose, 
erring,  as,  no  doubt,  all  minds  are  born  to  err, — but 
still  preserving  its  purity  of  purpose  and  high 
rectitude  of  conscious  intention,  and  using  its  words 
not  wantonly,  nor  wastefully,  but  as  a  gift  of  God — 
such  a  mind  must  always  be  attractive  and  beautiful, 
and  very  satisfying  to  look  at ;  and  such  we  believe 
Dr.  Newman  to  be.  Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to 
speak  of  him  as  the  second  most  remarkable  intelli- 
gence of  the  country  and  the  times  in  which  we 
live  ;  and  this  is  far  more  than  as  if  we  spoke  of 
him  as  the  first  preacher. 

In  this  slight  digest  of  the  pulpit  power  of  this 
distinguished  man  and  eminent  preacher,  we  have 
taken  no  exception  to  his  peculiarities  as  a  Romish 
priest  and   father.     In   some  of  his   later  sermons, 


i6o      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

those  for  "  Mixed  Congregations,"  and  on  "  Various 
Occasions,"  there  are  many  modes  of  speech  with 
which  of  course  we  can  have  no  sympathy,  because 
they  are  innate  and  essential  to  the  Romish  system  ; 
but  it  would  be  idle  work  to  remark  upon  these  ; 
they  are  obvious  to  every  Protestant  mind,  and  we 
take  our  farewell  with  one  more  illustration — it 
seems  to  us  one  of  great  beauty  : — 

THE   GREATNESS   AND   LITTLENESS    OF    HUMAN   LIFE. 

"  I  say  the  word  '  disappointing '  is  the  only  word  to 
express  our  feelings  on  the  death  of  God's  saints.  Unless 
our  faith  be  very  active,  so  as  to  pierce  beyond  the  grave 
and  realise  the  future,  we  feel  depressed  at  what  seems  like 
a  failure  of  great  things.  And  from  this  very  feeling  surely, 
by  a  sort  of  contradiction,  we  may  fairly  take  hope  ;  for  if 
this  life  be  so  disappointing,  so  unfinished,  surely  it  is  not 
the  whole.  This  feeling  of  disappointment  will  often  come 
upon  us  in  an  especial  way,  on  happening  to  hear  of,  or  to 
witness,  the  death-beds  of  holy  men.  The  hour  of  death 
seems  to  be  a  season  of  which,  in  the  hands  of  Providence, 
much  might  be  made,  if  I  may  use  the  term  ;  much  might 
be  done  for  the  glory  of  God,  the  good  of  man,  and  the 
manifestation  of  the  person  dying  And  beforehand  friends 
will  perhaps  look  forward,  and  expect  that  great  things  are 
then  to  take  place,  which  they  shall  never  forget.  Yet 
•  how  dieth  the  wise  man  ?  as  the  fool.'  Such  is  the 
preacher's  experience,  and  our  own  bears  witness  to  it. 
King  Josiah,  the  zealous  servant  of  the  living  God,  died  the 
death  of  wicked  Ahab,  the  worshipper  of  Baal.  True 
Christians  die  as  other  men.  One  dies  by  sudden  accident, 
another  in  battle,  another  without  friends  to  see  how  he 
dies,  a  fourth  is  insensible,  or  not  himself  Thus  the  oppor- 
tunity seems  thrown  away,  and  we  are  forcibly  reminded 
that  *  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God '  is  hereafter ; 


JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN.  i6i 


that  'the  earnest  expectation  of  the  creature  '  is  but  waiting 
for  it ;  that  this  Hfe  is  unequal  to  the  burden  of  so  great  an 
office  as  the  due  exhibition  of  those  secret  ones  who  shall 
one  day  '  shine  forth  as  the  sun  in  the  kingdom  of  their 
Father.' 

"But  further  (if  it  be  allowable  to  speculate),  one  can  con- 
ceive even  the  same  kind  of  feeling,  and  a  most  transporting 
one,  to  come  over  the  soul  of  the  faithful  Christian  when 
just  separated  from  the  body,  and  conscious  that  his  trial  is 
once  for  all  over.  Though  his  life  has  been  a  long  and 
painful  discipline,  yet  when  it  is  over,  we  may  suppose  him 
to  feel  at  the  moment  the  same  sort  of  surprise  at  its  being 
ended  as  generally  follows  any  exertion  in  this  life  when 
the  object  is  gained,  and  the  anticipation  is  over.  When 
we  have  wound  up  our  minds  for  any  point  of  time,  any 
great  event,  an  interview  with  strangers,  or  the  sight  of 
some  wonder,  or  the  occasion  of  some  unusual  trial,  when 
it  comes  and  is  gone,  we  have  a  strange  reverse  of  feeling 
from  our  changed  circumstances.  Such,  but  without  any 
mixture  of  pain,  without  any  lassitude,  dulness,  or  disap- 
pointment, may  be  the  happy  contemplation  of  the  disem- 
bodied spirit ;  as  if  it  said  to  itself,  '  So  all  is  now  over  ; 
this  is  what  I  have  so  long  waited  for  ;  for  which  I  have 
nerved  myself;  against  which  I  have  prepared,  fasted,  prayed, 
and  wrought  righteousness.  Death  is  come  and  gone, — 
it  is  over.  Ah  !  is  it  possible  ?  What  an  easy  trial,  what 
a  cheap  price  for  eternal  glory !  A  few  sharp  sicknesses,  or 
some  acute  pain  a  while,  or  some  few  and  evil  years,  or 
some  struggles  of  mind,  dreary  desolateness  for  a  season, 
fightings  and  fears,  afflicting  bereavements,  or  the  scorn  and 
ill-usage  of  the  world, — how  they  fretted  me,  how  much  I 
thought  of  them,  yet  how  little  they  really  are  !  How  con- 
temptible a  thing  is  human  life, — contemptible  in  itself,  yet 
in  its  effects  invaluable  !  for  it  has  been  to  me  like  a  small 
seed  of  easy  purchase,  germinating  and  ripening  into  bliss 
everlasiing."* 

II 


CHAPTER   VI. 

CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION. 

^"'HE  title  of  this  chapter  implies  a  very  large 
text,  upon  which  it  is  quite  impossible  in  the 
space  of  a  few  pages  to  be  exhaustive  ;  imagination 
is  a  diamond  of  so  many  facets.  We  have  just  been 
speaking  at  length  of  Cardinal  Newman,  but  we 
commenced  our  remarks  upon  him  by  saying  that  he 
was  eminently  a  minister  for,  and  to  ministers ; 
vain  and  useless  would  it  be  to  expect  that  such 
sermons  as  his  could  find  a  very  large  audience  with 
the  mere  commercial,  or  uneducated,  or  hurrying 
multitudes.  Imagination  is,  or  should  be  emi- 
nently the  preacher's  prerogative  ;  he  ought  to  be 
able  to  use  it  in  some  way  or  other  ;  it  constitutes 
very  much  of  what  we  call  eloquence,  words  effective 
in  their  graphic  precision,  or  harmonious  flow  ;  it 
gives  the  power  of  analogy  ;  it  suggests,  and  paints 
the  parable  ;  it  uses,  whether  slightly  touching  it,  or 
amply  dilating  upon  it,  the  figure,  or  image  of 
speech.  No  faculty  in  the  pulpit  has  been  much 
more  abused,  but  no  faculty,  when  wisely  used,  can, 
perhaps,  be  more  useful ;  it  gives  the  power  of 
entertaining,  and  interesting  ;  thus,  it  is  the  power 
of  the  philosophic,  or  thoughtful,  the  rhetorical,  or 
captivating,  and  the  poetical,  or  sentimental  preacher. 
Its  use  has  been  seriously  argued  against,  especially 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.        163 

by  those  who  have  none  of  it  ;  its  exercise  has  even 
been  thought  to  be  sinful,  and  we  perfectly  remem- 
ber, when  we  were  very  young,  reading  some  papers 
in  an  exceedingly  ancient  number  of  the  Evangelical 
Magazine,  in  which  some  writer  mildly  and  modestly 
attempted  to  insinuate  that  eloquence  was  not  always 
unpardonable.  In  our  previous  volume*  we  dwelt 
at  length  upon  the  principle  that  imagination  seizes 
upon  the  innermost  truth,  grasps  it  firmly,  and  holds 
it  up,  embodied  to  the  mind  ;  perhaps  its  first 
functional  relation  to  the  vocation  of  the  pulpit  is  in 
the  exercise  of  analogy,  by  which  it  becomes  one  of 
the  most  essential  and  successful  elucidators  of 
Divine  truth  ;  it  does  this  sometimes  by  a  close  com- 
parison or  resemblance,  and  sometimes  by  what  may 
be  regarded  as  more  than  this — even  an  entrance 
into  the  very  innermost  heart  of  the  subject,  and 
extraction  of  the  mystery  of  resemblance  ;  hence, 
mystical  views  of  Divine  truth  have  very  often  been 
very  helpful  ;  and,  hence,  even  some  pretty,  and  not 
unforced  resemblance  has  not  been  without  its  value 
as  a  taper,  if  not  as  a  torch.  A  beautiful  little  book, 
now  almost  forgotten,  is  "  Barton's  Analogy  of  Divine 
Wisdom,  in  the  Material,  Sensitive,  Moral,  Civil,  and 
Spiritual  System  of  Things  "  (1750).  It  is  not  like 
Butler's  work,  a  firmly  plaited  argument ;  but  the 
learning  is  very  interesting  and  entertaining,  and 
especially  where  he  uses  the  difficulties  of  mathe- 
matics for  the  purpose  of  unfolding  the  difficulties  of 
revelation.       Many    matters    of    science,    also,    are 

*  "The  Throne  of  Eloquence,"  in  which,  indeed,  we  have 
already  written  at  some  length  upon  the  subject  of  this 
chapter. 


i64      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

handled  most  interestingly.  Certainly,  many  readers, 
who  find  Butler  difficult,  will  find  Dr.  Barton's  work 
most  illuminating  and  entertaining.  This  work  of 
Divine  analogy  is  one  of  the  most  helpful  torches  of 
the  Christian  minister,  and  its  literature  is  of  rare 
and  great  interest.  The  fame  of  the  work  of  Butler 
has  too  much  put  out  of  sight  what  had  been  done 
before  ;  we  have  the  "  Divine  Analogy  "  of  Bishop 
Brown  (1733),  and  the  remarks  upon  the  same 
subject  in  the"MinutePhilosopher"of  Bishop  Berkeley. 
While  Butler  was  maturing  his  own  views,  these 
works  and  others  were  emanating  from  the  minds  of 
authors  whose  words  and  thoughts  are  still  worthy 
of  pondering,  although  the  more  famous  work  has  so 
suggested,  we  dare  not  say  exhausted,  the  depths  of 
the  subject. 

But  does  the  well-known  argument  of  Butler 
satisfy .-'  James  Martineau  has,  we  know,  ventured 
to  express  himself  thus  : — 

"  You  have  led  me  in  your  quest  after  analogies  through 
the  great  infirmary  of  God's  creation,  and  so  haunted  am  I 
by  the  sights  and  sounds  of  the  lazar  house,  that  scarce  can 
I  believe  in  anything  but  pestilence  ;  so  sick  of  soul  have  I 
become,  that  the  mountain  breeze  has  lost  its  scent  ot 
health  ;  and  you  say,  it  is  all  the  same  in  the  other  world, 
and  wherever  the  same  rule  extends ;  then  I  know  my  fate, 
that  in  this  world  justice  has  no  throne.  And  thus,  my 
friends,  it  comes  to  pass,  that  these  reasoners  often  gain 
indeed  their  victory ;  but  it  is  known  only  to  the  Searcher 
of  hearts  whether  it  is  a  victory  against  natural  religion  or 
in  favour  of  revealed.  For  this  reason  I  co7isider  the  Ana- 
logy of  Bishop  Butler  {one  of  the  profoundest  of  thinkers,  and 
on  purely  moral  subjects,  one  of  the  jusiest  too)  as  containing^ 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         165 

with  a  design  directly  contrary,  the  most  terrible  persuasives  to 
Atheism  that  have  ever  been  produced.  The  essential  error 
consists  in  selecting  the  difficulties — which  are  the  rare  excep- 
tional pheno7nena  of  nature — as  the  basis  of  analogy  a?id  argu- 
jnent." 

There  is  a  remarkable  conversation  recorded  by 
Wilberforce  witii  William  Pitt,  in  which  Pitt  declared 
to  Wilberforce  "  that  Butler's  work  raised  more 
doubts  in  his  mind  than  it  answered."  And  Sir 
James  Macintosh  is  reported  to  have  said  of  the 
Analogy,  "  This  can  only  be  an  answer  to  Deists  ; 
Atheists  might  make  use  of  his  objections,  and  have 
done  so."  By  another  writer,  Dr.  Schedel,  the 
argument  of  Butler  has  been  characterised  as  "  the 
analogy  of  uncertainty,"  and  "  the  analogy  of 
mystery."  While  Miss  Hennell,  a  well-known 
extreme  sceptical  writer,  has  claimed  the  Analogy  as 
an  ally  to  scepticism.  Yet  this  is  not  the  impression 
Butler  produced  upon  the  sceptics  of  his  own  day. 
David  Hume,  the  greatest  king  of  sceptics  of 
almost  any  age  or  nation,  but  especially  of  the  later 
days,  looked  upon  him  with  something  of  awe  ;  he 
mentions  how  anxious  he  was  to  have  the  Bishop's 
opinion  upon  some  points  in  his  treatise  on  "  Human 
Nature,"  before  its  publication,  and  says,  in  one  of 
his  letters,  "  I  am  at  present  cutting  off  its  nobler 
parts — i.e.,  endeavouring  it  shall  give  as  little  offence 
as  possible,  before  which  I  could  not  pretend  to  put 
it  into  the  Doctor's  hands.  This  is  a  piece  of 
coivcirdice  for  wJdcJi  I  blame  myself^  though  I  believe 
none  of  my  friends  will  blame  me."  Hume  called  on 
Butler,  but  did  not  see  him  ;  and  some  persons  have 
speculated  on  what  might  have  been  had  Butler  been 


i66      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

within  when  Hume  called — the  sceptic  might  have 
become  a  believer !  Miss  Hennell  has  attempted  to 
invalidate  the  argument  of  Butler  also  on  personal 
grounds  ;  but  the  character  of  Butler  every  way- 
shines  forth  as  the  clearest  ;  and  this  profoundest  of 
theologians  was  also  the  simplest  of  believers.  The 
great  sentiment  of  the  Analogy  seems  to  have  been 
ever  present  with  him,  giving  animation  to  all  its 
thought.  "  He  looked  to  Christ,"  he  said,  "  as  a  poor 
sinner,  for  salvation,"  and  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing anecdotes  is  of  his,  when  walking  in  the  garden 
with  his  chaplain,  Dr.  Forster,  stopping  short  and 
turning  round — a  way  he  appears  to  have  had — and 
with  great  earnestness  saying,  "  I  was  thinking, 
Doctor,  what  an  awful  thing  it  is  for  a  human  being 
to  stand  before  the  great  Moral  Governor  of  the 
world,  and  to  give  an  account  of  all  his  actions  in 
this  life." 

We  may  well,  however,  as  this  is  the  state  of  the 
argument,  desire  to  see  the  argument  of  analogy 
fairly  expounded,  and  its  extent  and  limitations 
defined  ;  for  there  is  a  tendency  to  undue  extension 
of  analogy,  as  when  Hegel  affirms  "  that  as  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  the  Father  and  the  Son,  and 
the  Holy  Ghost,  represent  the  infinite  and  the  finite, 
and  the  union  of  the  two,  their  identity  first,  then 
their  distinction,  and  their  return  to  identity,  so 
the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  has  a  meaning  no 
less  philosophical,"  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  We  may  well  be 
jealous  of  any  attempts  to  establish  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity  upon  a  rational  basis,  chiefly  by  means 
of  certain  natural  analogies  supplied  by  the  conscious- 
ness   of   the    human    mind  ;     there    are    casuistical, 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         167 

Jesuitical,  and  refining  sceptics,  as  well  as  such  among 
believers  and  theologists,  and  we  believe  it  is  from 
such  hands,  perhaps  on  both  sides,  the  argument  of 
analogy,  and  Butler's  argument  in  particular,  has 
suffered  wrong ;  the  application  of  the  argument 
needs  a  broad  and  honest  mind,  a  mind  not  so 
much  allured  by  certain  prettinesses  and  fanciful 
resemblances,  as  able  to  group  and  to  grasp  its 
comparisons,  and  so  rise  from  them  to  independent 
judgment  and  generalisation.  Thus  it  is  that  analogy 
has  been  in  so  many  and  quite  countless  instances, 
the  prompter  and  the  guide  of  life ;  this  is  the 
translation  of  Butler's  very  modest  and  most  pregnant 
starting-point  in  reasoning,  this  is  his  point  of  view 
of  the  likelihood  of  the  truth  of  the  Christian  system. 
He  started  from  this  singularly  modest  beginning 
— "  It  is  not  so  clear  that  there  is  nothing  in  it." 
The  character  of  modern  infidelity  has  quite  changed 
since  Butler's  day.  His  book  was  written  in  reply 
to  the  elegant  Deism  of  his  times.  A  course  of 
nature  was  granted,  an  author  of  nature  was 
admitted  ;  the  form  of  modern  sophistry  has 
changed, — a  course  of  nature  is  admitted,  but  not  an 
author.  How  is  the  modern  dream  of  Pantheism  to 
be  broken  ?  Will  analogy  serve  for  the  waking  ? 
If  we  think,  then,  we  should  think  in  order  ;  the 
greatest  danger  in  modern  thought  is  its  inconsecutive, 
scattered,  and  informative  character  ;  but,  alas  ! 
that  which  is  inconsecutive  in  thought  is  not  therefore 
inconsequential. 

Thus,  analogy  itself  may  be,  like  any  other  law  of 
thought,  a  dangerous  guide  ;  the  use  of  analogy  is 
not    to   be  denied  ;  it  is   invaluable — invaluable   as 


i68      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

speech,  it  is  the  inner  speech  of  the  soul,  it  is  the 
power  by  which  the  soul  realises  and  expresses 
itself.  All  the  discoveries  in  the  world, — in  me- 
chanics, in  science, — seem  to  have  been  happy- 
guesses,  reasonings  from  analogy  :  Harvey,  in  the 
circulation  of  the  blood;  Columbus,  in  the  discovery 
of  America  ;  Newton,  in  his  system  of  the  universe  ; 
Stephenson,  in  the  principle  of  the  locomotives. 
Biography  is  full  of  such  instances.  "  It  may  be 
almost  said,  without  qualification,"  says  Archbishop 
Whately,  "  that  wisdom  consists  in  the  ready  and 
accurate  perception  of  analogies  ;  "  and  Archbishop 
Thomson  says,  "  This  power  of  divination,  this 
sagacity  which  is  the  mother  of  all  science,  we  may 
call  anticipation.  The  intellect,  with  a  dog-like 
instinct,  will  not  hunt  until  it  has  found  the  scent ; 
it  must  have  some  presage  of  the  result  before  it  will 
turn  its  energies  to  its  attainment."  Thus  analogy 
is  an  instinct  of  thought ;  the  poet  and  the  meta- 
physician— Tennyson  and  Bishop  Berkeley — meet 
together  in  their  statement  of  this,  when  the  one 
says, — 

**  Thought  leapt  out  to  wed  with  thought, 
Ere  thought  leapt  out  to  wed  with  speech ; " 

and  the  other  says,  "  An  idea  which,  considered  in 
itself,  is  particular,  becomes  general  by  being  made 
to  represent  or  stand  for  all  other  particular  ideas  of 
the  same  sort."  This  is,  in  fact,  analogy  and  the 
statement  of  the  law  of  analogy.  Now,  how  is  this 
power  in  man  to  be  used  by  the  religious  teacher, 
man  being  unable  to  think  or  act  intelligently  with- 
out the  use  of  analogy  ?  Does  it  aid  the  entrance 
into,  and  the  dealuig  with,  the  higher  facts  of  the 


CONCEHNIA^G  THE  IMAGINATION.         169 

universe — the  universe  and  its  Author  ?  is  it  a  light  ? 
— may  it  be  made  yet  more  a  light  for  the  explor- 
ing of  the  kingdom  of  moral  relations  ?  It  has  been 
finely  said  by  Robert  Boyle  "  that  revelation  may 
be  to  reason  what  the  telescope  is  to  the  eye  ;  "  but 
the  telescope  needs  fixing,  needs  some  skill  in 
using.  God  gives  nothing — neither  hand,  foot,  nor 
spade — that  does  not  need  education  for  useful 
exercise.  The  very  charm  of  analogy  may  lead  to 
its  being  misused.  Experience  is  a  powerful  teacher, 
because  experience  is  only  another  name  for  induc- 
tion, or  moral  analogy  ;  hence  man  should  be  taught 
to  construct  his  moral  science  for  himself  upon  the 
basis  of  Scripture  and  experience  ;  and  Dr.  Buchanan 
well  says,  "  One  or  two  instances  clearly  discerned 
and  intelligently  applied,  by  the  exercise  of  a  man's 
own  mind,  will  be  of  more  practical  avail  than  a 
hundred  examples  presented  on  paper,  and  read,  but 
not  followed  up  by  reflection."* 

It  is  very  clear  that  Scripture,  in  the  appeal  it 
makes  to  the  understanding  of  man,  rests  strongly 
on  this  instinct  of  analogy — "  the  invisible  things  of 
Him  are  clearly  seen,  even  His  eternal  power  and 
Godhead."  Thus  the  sin  of  idolatry  is  condemned. 
Forasmuch  then  as  "  we  are  the  offspring  of  God,  we 
ought  not  to  think  that  the  Godhead  is  like  unto 
gold  or  silver,  or  stone  graven  by  art  and  man's 
device."  Dr.  Whately  has  very  directly  traced  our 
knowledge  of  the  properties  of  man  to  our  know- 
ledge of  the  perfections  of  God — the  showing  that 
the  proof  of  a  Being  possessed  of  these  is,  in  fact,  the 

♦"Analogy,  considered  as  a  Guide  to  Truth,"  etc.,  etc.     By 
James  Buchanan,  D.D.,  LL.D. 


170      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

very  same  evidence  on  which  we  believe  in  the  exist- 
ence of  one  another.  How  do  we  know  that  men 
exist,  that  is,  not  as  beings  having  a  certain  visible 
bodily  form, — for  that  is  not  what  we  chiefly  imply 
by  the  word  man, — but  as  rational  agents  such  as  we 
call  men  ?  Surely  not  by  the  immediate  evidence 
of  our  senses,  since  mind  is  not  an  object  of  sight, 
but  by  observing  the  things  performed — the  mani- 
fest result  of  rational  contrivance.  If  we  land  in  a 
strange  country  doubting  whether  it  be  inhabited,  as 
soon  as  we  find,  for  instance,  a  boat  or  a  house  we 
are  as  perfectly  certain  that  a  man  has  been  there 
as  if  he  appeared  before  our  eyes.  Now  we  are 
surrounded  with  similar  proofs  that  there  is  a  God. 
In  the  same  manner  of  argument  from  analogy,  we 
have  recently  read  a  paper  by  Professor  Hitchcock, 
in  the  "Bibliotheca  Sacra,"  "  On  the  Law  of  Nature's 
Constancy  as  Subordinate  to  the  Higher  Law  of 
Change," — truly  a  most  pregnant  subject  of  thought 
— for  if  natural  changes  be  consistent  with  fixed 
laws,  they  are  no  less  consistent  with  perturbations 
which  seem  to  shock  and  threaten  the  stability  of  the 
whole  system.  From  the  time  of  Paley  to  our  day, 
frequent  references  have  been  made  to  the  ceaseless 
disturbances  upon  the  regularity  and  permanency  of 
the  celestial  motions  ;  but  so  far  from  disturbing, 
they  secure  the  permanence  perhaps  of  a  whole 
zodiac — the  fallibility  of  a  system  secures  eternal 
stability.  What  an  endless  lesson  this  reads  us  ! 
The  analogy  of  nature  leads  us  through  all  her 
works  to  believe  that  the  principle  of  change — which 
has  been  hitherto  mightier  than  any  other  in  the 
government  and  preservation  of  the  universe,  and  in 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         171 

promoting  its  happiness — has  its  moral  analogies, 
and  that  it  may  furnish  some  light  as  to  the  dealing 
of  God,  not  only  with  the  kingdoms  of  matter,  but 
also  with  the  kingdom  of  souls.  It  is  the  modern 
fashion  to  declare  that  this  poor  sort  of  argument  is 
overlooked,  that  the  apparent  manifestation  of  design 
is  no  proof  of  "  the  manifold  wisdom  of  God  ; "  that 
living  infinite  Consciousness,  which  we  call  God, 
has  been  dethroned  by  the  mighty  modern  thinkers. 
Perhaps  the  great  power  of  God  will  never  nerve 
with  supreme  and  almighty  force  the  arm  wielding 
the  brightest  sword  from  the  armoury  of  the  human 
understanding ;  but  if  the  constitution  of  nature 
be  argued  from  as  a  Divine  intention,  as  well  as 
existence,  it  will  be  by  illustrations  from  the  wide 
field  of  analogy ;  indeed,  this  form  of  argument 
might,  we  believe,  be  most  successfully  and  triumph- 
antly applied  to  those  which  are  regarded  as  the 
wild,  and  most  baseless  "  absolutisms  "  of  Hegel  and 
Comte  ;  and  it  would  be  very  interesting  to  ask 
those  gentlemen  who  look  shudderingly  and  disdain- 
fully on  the  doctrine  of  analogy  what  they  think  of 
that  lawless  departure  from  it, — that  cheerless  voyag- 
ing in  the  phantom  ship  of  abstract  timbers,  that 
(good  ?)  ship  No-Thing,  to  the  continent  of  No- 
Where. 

No  doubt,  the  nature  within  the  man  determines 
the  character  of  his  moral  analogies,  as  it  has  been 
well  said,  "The  wolf,  when  he  was  learning  to  read, 
could  make  nothing  out  of  the  letters  but  lamb, 
whatever  other  words  they  might  form,"  and  the 
clearest  and  purest  light  will  burn  but  in  certain 
atmospheres.     The    Scripture    theory    presumes    an 


172      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

understanding  purified  and  prepared  for  a  clear, 
holy,  and  correct  judgment.  The  exercise  of  analogy 
is  indeed  to  be  prized  as  an  inestimable  weapon  ;  it 
is  valuable  and  available  not  only  for  the  almost 
negative  purposes  we  have  indicated — important  as 
these  are — it  is  valuable  in  all  the  parts  of  the 
building  of  the  Christian  system  and  the  Christian 
life.  "  Our  Lord  regarded  all  nature  as  a  symbol, 
whose  more  liter'al  meaning  had  a  spiritual  applica- 
tion. Hence,  He  spoke  of  knowledge  under  the 
name  of  light  ;  of  spiritual  renovation,  as  birth  ;  of 
faith,  as  mental  eyesight  ;  the  Spirit's  agency,  as 
similar  to  the  influence  of  the  unseen  wind."* 
Visions  and  symbols,  types  and  parables,  symbolical 
objects  and  symbolical  actions  abound  in  the  Scrip- 
tures of  truth — a  great  scheme  of  representationalism 
opens  to  the  eye.  "These  things  were  our  examples." 
Hence,  if  Lord  Bacon  could  say,  "  We  must  observe 
resemblances  and  analogies  :  they  unite  nature,  and 
lay  the  foundation  of  the  sciences,"  we  may  say,  we 
must  observe  resemblances  and  analogies  :  they  unite 
nature  and  Scripture,  and  lay  the  foundation,  broad 
and  immovable,  of  rational  and  faithful  religion  ; 
and,  in  a  higher  sense  than  that  which  Newton 
wrought,  the  physics  of  the  earth  become  the  means 
of  exploring  and  understanding  the  mysteries  of  the 
heavens. 

We  should  be  glad  therefore  of  any  help  towards 
trimming  this  lamp,  and  making  more  bright,  pure, 
and  clear  the  teachings  of  analogy.  It  will  do  very 
much,  and  be  very  useful  to  enlighten   intelligences, 

*  Buchanan. 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         173 

and  to  make  more  vivid  the  perceptions  for  the 
noting  of  the  system,  natural  and  moral,  beneath 
which  we  live,  as  also,  we  may  naturally  hope,  for 
the  awakening  of  minds  to  the  study  of  the  highest 
order  of  the  Christian  evidences,  and  for  the  satis- 
factory persuasion  of  the  human  understanding  that 
there  is  not  only  no  discrepancy,  but  wondrous 
harmony  between  the  works  and  the  Word  of  God. 
Imagination  is  not  always,  however,  so  ambitious, 
A  stroke  of  illustrative  analogy  sometimes  answers 
the  end  of  the  speaker.  When  preaching  from  the 
words  of  our  Lord, — "  If  I  have  told  you  earthly 
things  and  ye  believe  not,  how  shall  ye  believe  if  I 
tell  you  of  heavenly  things  ?  " — we  found  it  impos- 
sible to  forbear  commencing  by  a  reference  to  the 
great  legal  contest  for  the  purpose  of  throwing  out 
the  Bill  for  the  line  of  rail  between  Liverpool  and 
Manchester.  Chat  Moss,  over  which  it  now  passes, 
had  been  for  ages  a  vast  mysterious  bog — men, 
travellers,  and  soldiers  had  often  been  buried  in  its 
weltering  slough.  When  George  Stephenson's  plan 
was  proposed,  engineers  showed  that  it  would  be 
impossible  to  start  a  train  in  a  gale  of  wind,  and 
then  Mr.  Alderson,  afterwards  Baron  Alderson, 
summed  up  in  a  speech  which  extended  over  two 
days  ;  he  declared  Mr.  Stephenson's  plan  to  be  the 
most  absurd  scheme  that  ever  entered  into  the  head 
of  man  to  conceive.     Said  he  : — 

"*My  learned  friends  almost  endeavoured  to  stop  my 
examination ;  they  wished  me  to  put  in  the  plan,  but  I  had 
rather  have  the  exhibition  of  Mr.  Stephenson  in  that  box. 
I  say  he  never  had  a  plan.     I  beUeve  he  never  had  one. 


174      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

I  do  not  believe  he  is  capable  of  making  one.  His  is  a 
mind  perpetually  fluctuating  between  opposite  difficulties  ; 
he  neither  knows  whether  he  is  to  make  bridges  over  roads 
or  rivers,  of  one  size  or  of  another,  or  to  make  embank- 
ments, or  cuttings,  or  inclined  planes,  or  in  what  way  the 
thing  is  to  be  carried  into  effect.  Whenever  a  difficulty  is 
pressed,  as  in  the  case  of  a  tunnel,  he  gets  out  of  it  at  one 
end,  and  when  you  try  to  catch  him  at  that,  he  gets  out  at 
the  other.'  Mr.  Alderson  proceeded  to  declaim  against 
the  gross  ignorance  of  this  so-called  engineer,  who  proposed 
to  make  '  impossible  ditches  by  the  side  of  an  impossible 
railway '  upon  Chat  Moss.  *  I  care  not,'  he  said,  '  whe- 
ther Mr.  Giles  is  right  or  wrong  in  his  estimate  ;  for  whether 
it  be  effected  by  means  of  piers  raised  up  all  the  way  for 
four  miles  through  Chat  Moss,  whether  they  are  to  support 
it  on  beams  of  wood,  or  by  erecting  masonry,  or  whether 
Mr.  Giles  shall  put  a  solid  bank  of  earth  through  it,  in  all 
these  schemes  there  is  not  one  found  like  that  of  Mr. 
Stephenson's,  namely,  to  cut  impossible  drains  on  the  side 
of  this  road  ;  and  it  is  sufficient  for  me  to  suggest  and  to 
show  that  this  scheme  of  Mr.  Stephenson's  is  impossible  or 
impracticable,  and  that  no  other  scheme,  if  they  proceed 
upon  this  line,  can  be  suggested  which  will  not  produce 
enormous  expense.  I  think  that  has  been  irrefragably 
made  out.  Every  one  knows  Chat  Moss ;  every  one  knows 
that  the  iron  sinks  immediately  on  its  being  put  upon  the 
surface.  I  have  heard  of  culverts,  which  have  been  put 
upon  the  Moss,  which,  after  having  been  surveyed  the  day 
before,  have  the  next  morning  disappeared ;  and  that  a 
house  (a  poet's  house,  who  may  be  supposed  in  the  habit 
of  building  castles  even  in  the  air)  story  after  story,  as  fast 
as  one  is  added,  the  lower  one  sinks  !  There  is  nothing,  it 
appears,  except  long  sedgy  grass,  and  a  little  soil,  to  prevent 
its  sinking  into  the  shades  of  eternal  night.  I  have  now 
done,  sir,  with  Chat  Moss,  and  there  I  leave  this  rail- 
road.'" 


CONCERNING   THE  IMAGINATION.         175 

Remembering  how  often  we  have  travelled  over 
Chat  Moss  in  the  rushing  train,  whose  rails  were 
laid  by  the  man  so  scoffed  and  scorned,  what  an 
illustration  it  gives  of  that  mysterious  truth  and 
kingdom  of  which  our  Lord  said,  "  If  I  have  told 
you  earthly  things  and  ye  believe  not,  how  shall  ye 
believe  if  I  tell  you  of  heavenly  ?  " 

And  surely  we  may  remark  here  that  as  an  age 
and  nation  of  shepherds  derived  its  imagery  from 
pastoral  occupations,  and  an  age  and  nation  of 
merchants,  from  commerce,  so  the  age  of  science 
should  derive  its  images  from  the  world  of  science, 
as  in  such  an  illustration  from  Dr.  James  Hamil- 
ton : — 

"  It  is  of  vast  moment  to  be  '  just  right '  when  starting. 
At  Preston,  at  Malines,  at  many  such  places,  the  lines  go 
gently  asunder ;  so  fine  is  the  angle  that  at  first  the  paths 
are  almost  parallel,  and  it  seems  of  small  moment  which 
you  select.  But  a  little  further  on  one  of  them  turns  a 
corner,  or  dives  into  a  tunnel,  and  now  that  the  speed  is 
full,  the  angle  opens  up,  and  at  the  rate  of  a  mile  a  minute 
the  divided  convoy  flies  asunder ;  one  passenger  is  on  the 
way  to  Italy,  another  to  the  swamps  of  Holland  ;  one  will 
step  out  in  London,  the  other  in  the  Irish  Channel.  It  is 
not  enough  that  you  book  for  the  Better  Country  ;  you  must 
keep  the  way,  and  a  small  deviation  may  send  you  entirely 
wrong.  A  slight  deflection  from  honesty,  a  slight  divergence 
from  perfect  truthfulness,  from  perfect  sobriety,  may  throw 
you  on  a  \vTong  track  altogether,  and  make  a  failure  of  that 
life  which  should  have  proved  a  comfort  to  your  family,  a 
credit  to  your  country,  a  blessing  to  mankind.  Beware  of 
the  bad  habit,"  etc.,  etc. 

It  w^  a  good  saying  of  an  ancient  bishop,  "  Lord, 


176      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

send  me  learning  enough,  that  I  may  preach  plain 
enough."  It  is  indeed  the  end  of  every  instruction 
the  preacher  can  receive,  and  it  has  been  often 
remarked  that  prophets  and  preachers  in  the  Old 
Testament  ever  accommodated  themselves  to  the 
capacities  of  those  to  whom  they  spoke.  They 
talked  of  fishes  to  the  Egyptians,  and  droves  of 
cattle  to  the  Arabians,  and  trade  and  traffic  to  the 
Syrians  ;  and  our  Lord  tells  His  fishermen  they 
shall  be  fishers  of  men.  Hence,  for  this  very 
reason,  not  only  the  Evangelists,  but  the  great 
preachers  like  Augustine  and  Ambrose,  spoke 
viilgarly  ;  they  used  a  popular  idiom  and  dialect  in 
their  determination  to  be  understood  ;  they  stood 
not  always  upon  pureness  of  style,  being  more 
solicitous  about  the  matter  than  the  words.  Men 
and  children  use  things  in  very  different  ways  :  a 
child  uses  money,  but  with  different  ideas  from  a 
man  ;  and  bees  and  butterflies  extract  different 
things  from  the  same  flowers.  Thus,  while  some 
ministers  only  desire  to  tip  their  tongues,  or  to 
store  their  heads,  the  true  minister's  idea  is  to  save 
himself  and  those  who  hear  him.  He  must  there- 
fore stoop  to  their  apprehensions,  condescend  to 
their  capacities,  that  he  may  save  some,  becoming 
all  things  to  all  men  ;  Paul  said  he  would  even 
become  "  a  fool  for  Christ's  sake."  Hence,  as  we 
have  already  said,*  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that  for 
the  purpose  of  teaching,  one  illustration  is  worth  a 
thousand  abstractions;!  illustrations  are  the  windows 

*  "  Throne  of  Eloquence,"  p.  433. 

t  How  affluently  this  is  illustrated  in  Spencer's  Eatva  /cat 
rraXata — "Things  New  and  Old,"  1658,  p.  281.  • 


CONCERNING  THE  UIAGINATION.  177 

of  speech,  through  them  truths  shine,  and  ordinary 
minds  fail  to  perceive  truth  clearly  unless  it  be 
presented  to  them  through  their  medium. 

This,  then,  we  believe  to  be  the  law  of  the  parable  ; 
thought  is  unhappy  until  it  finds  a  body  for 
itself ;  it  wearies  of  wandering  to  and  fro  among 
words  which,  at  the  best,  can  only  convey  half  a 
meaning  ;  it  tires  of  a  vain  flitting  through  the 
chambers  of  ghosts  and  disembodied  thought,  forms 
which,  if  they  are  really  there,  and  perceived,  are 
only  like  phantoms  dancing  on  the  wall.  Hence, 
the  parabolic  form  of  thought  is  not  peculiar  to  any 
people  ;  all  nations  have  their  legends,  and,  perhaps, 
the  unity  of  the  popular  legend  is  one  of  the  most 
interesting  illustrations  of  the  unity  of  the  race. 
Legends  are  not  so  much  derived  from  each  other  ; 
they  are  rather  the  spontaneous  language  of  the 
wondering  and  the  realising  soul  of  man.  This  is  a 
topic  that  merits  much  more  than  a  passing  remark  ; 
but  it  is  beyond  the  natural  range  of  these  pages. 
Meantime,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  imagery 
and  parabolic  power  of  the  mind  is  confined  to  the 
Eastern  and  Scriptural  illustrations.  Iceland  has 
its  Edda,  and  the  Sagas  of  Snorro  Sturleston."^'' 

There  is  a  singular  disposition  of  the  mind  to 
regard  all  things  as  human,  and  even  inanimate 
things  as  really  alive.  From  before  the  days  even 
of  .^sop  until  now,  beasts  and  birds,  and  creeping 
things,  have  been  made  to  speak,  not  only  as  in  the 
possession  of  consciousness,  but  of  reason  and 
sensibility.      Imagination    plays    with    these    things 

*  See   our    Introductory    Essay,    "  World  of  Proverb  and 
Parable,"  on  the  Unity  of  the  Popular  Tale. 

12 


178       THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

and  creatures  ;  and  the  happy  power  of  the  good- 
humoured  caricaturist,  who  would  cure  the  vices  or 
foibles  of  mankind  without  the  severity  of  the 
satirist,  is  never  more  admirably  displayed  than 
when  indulging  these  innocent  licences  of  fancy  and 
speech.  It  is  most  quaint  and  ludicrous  to  notice 
what  human  likenesses  and  resemblances  peep  out 
from  the  meanest  things.  The  echo  of  a  human 
heart  seems  to  sound  from  all  things  above  man, 
and  every  little  creature,  and  everything  man  has 
made,  from  beneath  him  seems  to  look  up  and  to 
claim  a  relationship.  Thus,  in  a  little  illustration 
of  Andersen's  way  of  using  things  : — 

"There  was  once  a  Darnjng-needle  so  fine  that  she 
fancied  herself  a  Sewing-needle. 

"  '  Now,  take  care,  and  hold  me  fast ! '  said  the  Darning- 
needle  to  the  Fingers  that  took  her  up.  '  Don't  lose  me, 
pray  !  If  I  were  to  fall  down  on  the  floor,  you  would 
never  be  able  to  find  me  again,  I  am  so  fine  ! ' 

"  *  That's  more  than  you  can  tell ! '  said  the  Fingers,  as 
they  took  hold  of  her. 

" '  See,  I  come  with  a  train  ! '  said  the  Darning-needle, 
drawing  a  long  thread,  without  a  single  knot  in  it,  after  her. 

"The  Fingers  guided  the  Needle  to  the  cook-maid's 
slippers;  the  upper  leather  was  torn,  and  had  to  be  sewn 
together. 

"'This  is  vulgar  work  !'  said  the  Darning-needle;  *I 
shall  never  get  through  ;  I  break,  I  am  breaking ! '  And 
break  she  did.  'Did  I  not  say  so?'  continued  she;  'I 
am  too  fine  ! ' 

"  *  Now  she  is  good  for  nothing,'  thought  the  Fingers ; 
however,  they  must  still  keep  their  hold ;  the  cook-maid 
dropped  sealing-wax  upon  the  Darning-needle  and  then 
stuck  her  into  her  neckerchief. 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         179 


"  'See,  now  I  am  a  Breast-pin  ! '  said  the  Darning-needle; 
"  '  I  knew  well  that  I  should  come  to  honour ;  when  one  is 
something,  one  always  becomes  something.'  And  at  this 
she  laughed,  only  inwardly,  of  course,  for  nobody  has  ever 
seen  or  heard  a  Darning-needle  laugh ;  there  sat  she  now 
at  her  ease,  as  proud  as  if  she  were  driving  in  her  carriage, 
and  looking  about  her  on  all  sides." 

It  was  somewhat  in  this  parabolic  manner 
Latimer  was  in  the  habit  of  speaking,  as  when  he 
says  : — 

"  We  read  a  pretty  story  of  St.  Anthony,  who,  being  in 
the  wilderness,  led  there  a  very  hard  and  strict  life,  inso- 
much as  none  at  that  time  did  the  like,  to  whom  came  a 
voice  saying,  '  Anthony,  thou  art  not  so  perfect  as  is  a 
cobbler  that  dwelleth  at  Alexandria.'  Anthony,  hearing  this, 
rose  up  forthwith,  and  took  his  staff  and  travelled  till  he 
came  to  Alexandria,  where  he  found  the  cobbler.  The 
cobbler  was  astonished  to  see  so  reverend  a  father  come 
to  his  house.  Then  Anthony  said  unto  him,  '  Come  and 
tell  me  thy  whole  conversation,  and  how  thou  spendest  thy 
time.'  'Sir,'  said  the  cobbler,  ' as  for  me,  good  works  have 
I  none,  for  my  life  is  but  simple  and  slender;  I  am  but 
a  poor  cobbler ;  in  the  morning  when  I  rise,  I  pray  for 
the  whole  city  wherein  I  dwell,  especially  for  all  such 
neighbours  and  poor  friends  as  I  have ;  after,  I  set  me  at 
my  labour,  where  I  spend  the  whole  day  in  getting  my 
living ;  and  1  keep  me  from  all  falsehood,  for  I  hate 
nothing  so  much  as  I  do  deceiifulness  ;  wherefore,  when 
I  make  any  man  a  promise  I  keep  it  and  perform  it  truly ; 
and  thus  I  spend  my  time  poorly,  with  my  wife  and 
children,  whom  I  teach  and  instruct,  as  far  as  my  wit  will 
serve  me,  to  fear  and  dread  God.  And  this  is  the  sum  of 
my  simple  life.'"* 

*  "Sermons,"  vol.  ii.  p.  'j^'j.    Ed.  1758. 


i8o      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

And,  after  the  same  fashion  of  illustration,  Jeremy 
Taylor's  well-known  appropriation  of  a  Jewish 
legend  : — 

"  When  Abraham  sat  at  his  tent  door,  according  to  his 
custom,  waiting  to  entertain  strangers,  he  espied  an  old 
man,  stooping  and  leaning  on  his  staff,  weary  with  age  and 
.travel,  coming  towards  him,  who  was  a  hundred  years  of 
age.  He  received  him  kindly,  washed  his  feet,  provided 
supper,  caused  him  to  sit  down ;  but  observing  that  the 
old  man  ate,  and  prayed  not,  nor  begged  for  a  blessing  on 
his  meat,  he  asked  him  why  he  did  not  worship  the  God 
of  heaven.  The  old  man  told  him  that  he  worshipped  the 
fire  only,  and  acknowledged  no  other  God.  At  which 
answer  Abraham  grew  so  zealously  angry,  that  he  thrust 
the  old  man  out  of  his  tent,  "and  exposed  him  to  all  the 
evils  of  the  night  and  an  unguarded  condition.  When  the 
old  man  was  gone,  God  called  to  Abraham  and  asked  him 
where  the  stranger  was  ?  He  replied,  *  I  thrust  him  away 
because  he  did  not  worship  Thee.'  God  answered  him,  *  I 
have  suffered  him  these  hundred  years,  although  he  dis- 
honoured Me;  and  couldst  not  thou  endure  him  one  night?'" 

A  sweet  little  fancy  in  this  way  is  in  John 
Pulsford's  beautiful  and  helpful  "  Quiet  Hours,"  a 
work  which  will  probably  outlive  on  the  waves  of 
time  many  a  more  ambitious-looking  vessel. 

A   LITTLE   bird's   SERMON   TO   A   SERMON-MAKER. 

"  I  was  in  the  act  of  kneeling  down  before  the  Lord,  my 
God,  when  a  little  bird,  in  the  lightest,  freest  humour,  came 
and  perched  near  my  window,  and  thus  preached  to  me, 
all  the  while  hopping  about  from  spray  to  spray.  *  O  thou 
grave  man,  look  on  me  and  learn  something,  if  not  the 
deepest  lesson,  then  a  true  one.  Thy  God  made  me  ;  and, 
if  thou   canst  conceive   it,  loves   me  and   cares   for  me. 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION,         i8i 

Thou  studiest  Him  in  great  problems,  which  oppress  and 
confound  thee ;  thou  losest  sight  of  one  half  of  His  ways. 
Learn  to  see  thy  God  not  in  great  mysteries  only,  but  in 
me  also.  His  burden  on  me  is  light,  His  yoke  on  me  is 
easy ;  but  thou  makest  burdens  and  yokes  for  thyself  which 
are  very  grievous  to  be  borne.  I  advise  thee  not'  only  to 
see  God  in  little  things,  but  to  see  little,  cheerful,  sportive 
things  in  God,  as  well  as  great,  solemn,  awful  things. 
Things  deep  as  hell  and  high  as  heaven  thou  considerest 
overmuch  ;  but  thou  dost  not  "  consider  the  lilies  "  suffi- 
ciently. Every  priest  should  put  by  his  awful  robes,  etc., 
etc.,  sometimes,  and  go  free.  If  thou  couldst  be  as  a  lily 
before  God  for  at  least  one  hour  in  the  twenty-four,  it 
would  do  thee  good  ;  I  mean,  if  thou  couldst  cease  to  will 
and  to  think,  and  be  only.  Consider,  the  lily  is  as  really 
from  God  as  thou  art,  and  is  a  figure  of  something  in  Him, 
the  like  of  which  should  also  be  in  thee. 

" '  Thou  longest  to  grow,  but  the  lily  grows  without 
longing  ;  yes,  without  either  thinking  or  willing,  grows,  and 
is  beautiful  both  to  God  and  man.     Think  of  that. 

"  '  In  conclusion  I  remind  thee,  that  God  has  many  kinds 
of  voices  in  the  world,  and  none  of  them  is  without  significa- 
tion. But  I  perceive  that  thine  ear  is  open  only  to  voices 
of  one  kind.  Thy  danger  is,  under  the  conceit  of  being 
the  more  godly,  of  becoming  monstrous,  and  not  quite 
Godlike.  Excuse  a  little  bird.  I  am  but  one  of  the  "many 
kinds  of  voices  "  which  God  has  "  in  the  world."  '  " 

Such  are  pleasing  illustrations  of  the  use  of 
the  imagination  ;  but  there  is  a  kind  of  illustration 
which  is  no  illustration  ;  fancy  and  imagination  all 
run  wild,  all  separated  alike  from  good  sense  and 
good  taste,  which  are  indeed  the  same.  Some- 
times things  have  been  said  merely  to  produce 
effect,  sometimes  from  mere  ignorance  or  execrable 
taste  in  the  speaker,  and  this  may  be  without  the 


1 82      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

preacher  being  so  bad  as  he  was  who  likened  "  the 
angel,  having  the  everlasting  Gospel  to  preach,  to  an 
angel  running  on  a  rainbow  with  a  basket  of  stars 
in  each  hand  ; "  or  as  that  Annerican  divine  who, 
describing  the  flight  from  time  to  eternity,  said, 
"  It  would  be  as  if  astride  a  flash  of  lightning — 
putting  spurs  into  it  to  dash  off  to  glory."  Worse, 
if  possible,  than  this  it  is  when  words  are  used  only 
because  they  are  fine  and  flourishing,  while  they 
serve  no  purpose  in  the  work  of  the  exposition. 

In  a  review  of  the  vocation  of  the  preacher,  we 
have  been  impressed  by  the  idea  formed  of  it  by  the 
Rev.  J.  C.  M.  Bellew.*  The  evidence  is  contained 
in  his  sermons.  We  have  one  on  Paul  preaching  at 
Athens  ;  the  course  of  description  is,  indeed,  not 
new  ;  we  remember  to  have  met  with  other  preachers 
who  have  indulged  in  a  similar  vein  of  fancy.  A 
wise  preacher  will  turn  to  admirable  account  his 
wanderings  through  apostolic  scenes,  but  Mr.  Bellew 
shows  us  how  7iot  to  use  such  travels  ;  page  on  page 
is  occupied  by  needless  and  impertinent  description. 
As  in  the  following,  which  may  surely  be  called,  for 
a  sermon,  a  ridiculous  description  of — 

"PAUL   PREACHING  AT   ATHENS. 

"From  the  port  of  the  Piraeus,  at  the  distance  of  five 
miles,  the  Acropolis  of  Athens,  crowned  with  its  ruins,  rises. 
It  is  visible  to  the  traveller  above  the  surrounding  plain. 
When  St.  Paul  reached  the  port,  on  his  voyage  from 
Thessalonica  and  Ber^ea,  that  rock  would  meet  his  eye, 
crowded  with  chaste  and  noble  edifices  which  the  hands 

*  "When  this  was  first  published  Mr.  Bellew  was  living  and 
in  the  full  exercise  of  his  ministry  in  Bloomsbury. 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         183 

of  Pericles  and  others  left  as  the  choicest  gems  of  architec- 
tural taste  to  the  world.  Towering  above  them  all,  the 
Apostle  would  first  behold  an  evidence  of  Greek  idolatry, 
in  the  gigantic  figure  of  Minerva  (cast  out  of  the  brazen 
trophies  of  war  taken  at  Marathon),  which,  grasping  its 
shield  and  spear,  overlooked  the  city  beneath,  as  the  angel 
with  outstretched  wings  at  present  overlooks  Rome  from 
the  castle  of  St.  Angelo.  From  the  spot  where  the  Apostle 
landed,  up  to  the  city,  there  had  formerly  been  one  con- 
tinuous street,  defended  by  the  so-called  '  Long  Walls,' 
which  memorable  fortifications  united  Athens  with  its  port  of 
the  Piraeus.  These  had  been  destroyed.  Crossing  the  plain 
amidst  their  ruins,  the  Aposde  would  enter  the  city  where 
the  evidences  of  idolatry,  and  yet  of  the  taste  and  splendour 
of  the  Athenians,  lay  scattered  thickly  around  him. 

"  He  would  at  once  be  surrounded  by  altars,  and  temples, 
and  statues  dedicated  to  Apollo,  Jupiter,  Mercury,  and 
others,  skirting  on  every  side  the  edges  of  the  street  which 
led  directly  from  the  Pirasan  gateway  to  the  foot  of  the 
Acropolis.  Approaching  this  termination,  on  his  left  rose 
the  hill  called  the  Pnyx,  where  the  Athenians  held  their 
political  meetings.  Beyond  it  again  stood  the  hill  of  the 
Areopagus,  crowned  with  the*  temple  of  Mars.  To  that 
hill  we  must  presently  proceed.  Before  him,  an  immense 
quadrangular  building  intercepted  his  approach  to  the 
Acropolis.  This  was  the  Agora,  or  market-place  of  Athens, 
and  it  was  entered  on  every  side  by  porticoes,  surmounted 
by  statues,  on  one  of  which  as  Paul  passed  along  he  may 
have  looked  upon  the  'God  of  Day.'  We  read  (ver.  17) 
that  Paul  was  daily  '  in  the  market  with  them  that  met  with 
him.'  This  Agora  or  market-place  was  the  spot  where 
(ver.  21)  the  Athenians  and  strangers  spent  their  time  in 
nothing  else  '  but  either  to  tell  or  to  hear  some  new  thing.' 
It  was  in  reality  a  beautiful  square,  whose  centre  was 
planted  with  trees,  interspersed  with  statues.  It  was  sur- 
rounded   by   cloisters,    probably   resembling    the    Campo 


184      2 HE    VOCATION  OF  IHE  PREACHER. 

Santo  at  Pisa,  and  its  walls  and  roofs  were  covered  with 
paintings  representing  the  most  memorable  incidents  in 
Athenian  history.  There  the  Grecian  artist  had  depicted 
the  glorious  achievement  at  Marathon.  This  colonnade 
received  the  name  of  the  Stoa  Poecile,  or  Painted  Cloister, 
and  it  became  the  favourite  resort  of  Zeno  and  his  disciples, 
whereby  they  received  the  name  of  Stoics,  or  the  philo- 
sophers who  frequented  the  painted  Stoa.  In  the  gardens 
within  the  court  were  the  statues  of  the  great  men  of 
Greece,  Demosthenes,  Solon,  and  others.  Here,  again,  the 
evidences  of  idolatry  met  the  Apostle's  view  I  Mercury, 
and  Hercules,  and  Apollo  received  the  popular  reverence 
in  the  midst  of  this  market-place.  The  spirit  of  Paul  was 
stirred  within  him  when  he  saw  the  city  wholly  given  to 
idolatry  (ver.  16).  The  porticoes  of  the  Agora  within  which 
he  stood  were  surmounted  with  idols.  Statues  of  gods 
were  erected  in  every  direction  within  its  cloisters — even 
in  a  favoured  retreat  both  of  poets  and  philosophers,  of 
which  Dr.  Doddridge  has  well  remarked,  '  The  prevalence 
of  such  a  variety  of  senseless  superstitions  in  this  most 
learned  and  polite  city,  which  all  its  neighbours  beheld 
with  so  much  veneration,  gives  a  lively  and  affecting  idea 
of  the  need  we  have  in  the  most  improved  state  of  human 
reason  of  being  taught  by  a  Divine  revelation.^ 

"As  Paul  looked  beyond,  where  the  rock  of  the  Acropolis 
rose  above  the  city,  he  would  behold  it  crowded  with  the 
temples  and  idols  of  a  corrupt  religion.  When  the  Apostle 
'  saw  the  city,'  as  he  passed  along,  he  would  no  doubt 
ascend  the  Acropolis  by  its  sole  entrance,  the  Propylasa, 
erected  by  Pericles.  There  would  stand  the  temple  of 
Victory,  and  within,  or  about  its  vestibule,  the  figures  of 
Mercury,  Minerva,  and  Venus;  there  he  would  see  the 
statues  of  Pericles,  and  also  of  the  Roman  Agrippa  and 
Augustus.  Upon  the  levelled  platform  of  the  Acropolis  he 
would  behold  everywhere  the  most  choice  specimens  of 
Grecian  statuary,  commemorating  the  mythological  histories 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         185 

of  the  gods.  But  superior  to  all,  he  would  stand  beneath 
that  colossal  figure  of  Minerva  holding  her  brazen  shield 
above  the  head  of  Athens :  and  he  would  look  on  that 
superb  triumph  of  art,  that  epic  of  poetry  done  in  stone, 
the  temple  of  Minerva,  the  Parthenon  ! — the  glorious  effort 
of  the  proudest  days  of  Athens ;  and  even  to  this  hour  in 
its  ruins,  the  lasting  monument  which  tells  the  grandeur  of 
that  Greece  which  is  no  more  !'' 

A  witty  writer,  upon  all  this,  has  conceived  of  one 
preaching  in  Westminster  in  some  future  age,  and 
beginning  his  sermon  with  a  brief  account  of  the 
Reform  Club  ;  then  quitting  that  building,  the  Duke 
of  York's  Column  and  Waterloo  Place  claim  a 
moment's  notice.  Proceeding  along  Pall  Mall,  the 
eye  rests  upon  the  equestrian  statue  of  George  III. 
The  University  Club  suggests  a  digression  to  the 
Isis  and  the  Cam.  Presently,  on  the  left,  the 
Royal  Academy  rises  above  Trafalgar  Square,  and 
the  pictures  which  are  now  exhibiting  there  will 
claim  a  hasty  criticism.  The  statue  of  Lord  Nelson, 
at  Charing  Cross,  is  to  an  Englishman  what  the 
brazen  Pallas  of  the  Acropolis  was  to  an  Athenian, 
and  therefore  it  must  not  be  forgotten  ;  that  statue 
looks  down  upon  the  speaker.  Nor  must  it  be 
forgotten  that  Sir  Charles  Napier  stood  erect  and 
stiff,  and  Dr.  Jenner  reclined  meditatively,  and  the 
fountains  played  feebly,  and  the  little  boys  vigor- 
ously, in  the  square.  The  hoary  piles  and  the 
ancient  memories  of  the  Abbey  and  the  Hall  will 
next  demand  attention,  and  so  on  ;  but  what  a 
remarkable  thing  if  the  preacher  should  imagine  that 
he  is  piercing  the  conscience  or  preachmg  the  Gospel 
all  this  time  !  Most  of  Mr.  Bellew's  sermons  dis- 
play this   mere  artistic  faculty,   this  gathering  and 


186      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

disposing  of  mental  stuff  and  wares  which  have  been 
in  some  sense  apprehended  by  the  intellect,  but 
which  have  never  approached,  and  still  less  been 
absorbed  into,  the  consciousness  of  spiritual  truths 
and  things. 

We  think  the  question  in  every  instance  should  be, 
—  Does  it  help?  Does  that  mode  of  putting  it 
help  ?  Would  it  help  me  ?  and  a  canon  of  our 
speech  for  all  times  should  be  the  canon  of  the  old 
poet — not  too  much  of  anything; — to  overcolour  is  to 
destroy  all  effect  ; — not  too  much  detail — to  know 
when  to  stop  ; — not  too  many  words — to  overlay  the 
ornament  is  to  destroy  all  the  beauty,  the  harmony, 
the  impressiveness,  by  destroying  proportion.  Per- 
haps in  the  preacher's  order  of  teaching,  we  must 
often  use  more  words  than  strict  good  taste  allows, 
because  we  have  to  stimulate  spiritual,  and  even 
intellectual  appetites ;  the  severe  style  tells  on 
educated  and  refined  minds  in  a  state  of  preparation 
but  just  as  pictures  are  for  children,  so  also  pictorial 
words  and  emotions,  which  embody,  and  even 
startle,  must  be  used  in  dealing  with  the  multitudes. 
Still  the  mind,  as  it  prepares  itself,  should  come 
back  to  the  question,  Will  that  help  ?  Is  that  too 
much  ?  This  will  compel  the  speaker  to  feel  his 
own  images — his  own  language  ;  that  which  is  real 
to  him  will  usually  be  felt  to  be  real  to  the  audience 
he  addresses  ;  not  in  mere  copiousness,  but  in  select- 
ness  is  power  ;  not  in  the  crowd  of  illustrations,  but 
in  the  distinctness  of  one  is  power.  Even  as  we  are 
lost  in  a  gallery  of  paintings,  until  we  take  refuge  in 
one,  and  permit  it  to  exercise  its  impression. 

But  we  have  to  manage  our  text  by  illustration, 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         187 

and  on  this  we  must  dwell  a  little  longer.  We  need 
skill  here  :  good  taste  is  only  the  unison  of  sound 
knowledge  and  correct  feeling  ;  but  we  greatly  need 
good  taste  here,  as  a  rule.  If  an  illustration  add  at 
all  to  the  light  in  our  own  mind,  it  will  probably  add 
to  the  light  upon  the  text  in  the  minds  of  our 
audience  ;  and  here  let  us  be  careful  of  the  improper 
use  of  allegory.  It  needs  superlative  genius  to  be 
tolerable — a  bold,  strong,  Bunyan-like,  Christmas 
Evans- like  mind,  may  recite  an  allegory  like  some 
lofty  poem  ;  but  should  be  very  cautious  how  it  yields 
to  the  seduction. 

Ordinary  preachers  should  be  cautious,  not  only 
how  they  invent  the  allegory  for  the  pulpit  them- 
selves, but  how  they  allegorise  Divine  Truth.  No 
doubt  we  do  find  many  instances  of  such  a  use  in 
Scripture,  but  when  Origen  spiritualises  the  account 
of  Abraham's  denying  his  wife,  the  polygamy,  the 
patriarchy,  and  Noah's  drunkenness,  we  must  feel 
how  dangerous  is  the  whole  ground,  and  especially 
as  many  minds  will  not  fail  to  make  this  their  very 
method  of  interpretation.  When  men  use  the 
language  of  the  Bible  as  the  mere  instrument  of  a 
cultivated  fancy,  to  make  their  style  attractive  or 
impressive,  it  is  needless  to  say  they  are  guilty  of 
a  great  irreverence  towards  its  Divine  Author  ;  but 
there  is  a  danger  lest  we  also  err  in  making  the 
story  the  vehicle  for  our  fancy.  How  eminently 
this  was  the  case  with  the  Church  of  Alexandria.* 
Some  writers,  whom  we  greatly  respect,  have  made 
sad  nonsense  even  of  some  portions  of  the  Book  of 

*  See  Cardinal  Newman's  "History  of  Arians,"  etc., 
heap.  i.  p.  7. 


i88      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

God.  Let  us  remember  that  while  we  must  not  shut 
our  eyes  to  the  indirect  and  instructive  applications 
of  which  a  text  is  capable,  we  must  never  so  reason 
as  to  forget  that  there  is  a  sense  peculiarly  its  own  ; 
it  is  this  meaning  which  we  are  especially  to  unfold. 
What  do  our  readers  think  of  this  method  of  handling 
a  text  ?  We  are  sorry  to  say  we  extract  it  from  the 
sermon  of  a  French  refugee,  Father  Gousset, — from 
Proverbs  xxx.  i8,  19: — "There  are  three  things 
which  are  too  wonderful  for  me  ;  yea,  four,  which  I 
know  not  :  the  way  of  an  eagle  in  the  air ;  the  way 
of  a  serpent  upon  a  rock  ;  the  way  of  a  ship  in  the 
midst  of  the  sea  ;  and  the  way  of  a  man  with  a 
maid."  Gousset  says,  "  The  way  of  an  eagle  in  the 
air  is  the  way  of  Jesus  Christ  ascending  to  heaven. 
The  way  of  a  serpent  upon  a  rock  is  the  way  of 
Jesus  Christ  in  that  rock  in  a  cavern  of  which  He 
was  buried  ;  there  remained  no  scent  by  which  the 
place  of  His  sepulture  could  be  known.  The  way  of 
a  ship  in  the  sea  denotes  the  way  of  Jesus  Christ^ 
among  His  countrymen  in  the  course  of  His  ministry, 
which  left  no  more  traces  among  them  than  a  ship 
leaves  in  the  ocean.  The  way  of  a  man  with  a 
maid  signifies  the  miraculous  birth  of  Christ  of  a 
virgin."  And  the  reason  assigned  for  this  exposi- 
tion is  "  that  the  wise  man  speaks  of  wonderful 
things  ;  now,  there  is  nothing  wonderful  in  these 
things  taken  literally,  but  taken  allegorically^  they 
are  wonderful  events  indeed  !  "  This  is  extorting  a 
sense  by  bombarding  a  text.  The  good  man,  also, 
must  have  had  a  vast  conception  of  his  own  know- 
ledge not  to  have  perceived  that  the  wise  man  did 
in    the    text    really  express    some    of  the  greatest 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         189 

mysteries  of  things, — in  the  motion  of  birds,  the 
sleep  of  reptiles,  the  marvels  of  navigation,  and  the 
ways  of  human  hearts. 

All  this  is  nonsense,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
impossible  to  read  the  Scriptures  much,  and  to 
meditate  upon  their  histories,  without  frequently 
feeling  a  class  of  emotions  which  should  naturally 
lead  us  to  carry  them  into  the  pulpit,  and,  usually, 
such  meditations,  when  they  come  to  a  thoughtful, 
prayerful,  and  pious  mind,  will  supply  material  very 
fitting  for  discourse.  We  consider  there  is  a  law  of 
Scripture — symbolism.  There  is  a  great  prejudice, 
we  believe,  in  what  is  called  the  educated  ministry, 
against  the  method  of  taking  as  a  text  some  Scrip- 
tural illustration,  and  tracing  it  through  a  series  of 
analogies  and  resemblances.  Surely  this  is  not  the 
only  method  in  the  pulpit  ;  but  just  as  surely  it  is  a 
method — a  method  not  necessarily  out  of  keeping 
with  good  taste  ;  a  method  admirably  calculated  for 
discursive  instruction,  level  to  the  majority  of 
hearers.  If  it  were  not  beneath  the  dignity  of  the 
mind  of  the  Spirit  to  suggest  to  the  holy  men  of 
God,  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  such  an  image, 
surely  it  is  not  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  modern 
ministry  to  seek  out  such  unstrained,  modern  signifi- 
cations as  may  tend  to  edification.  May  we,  without 
apparent  conceit,  introduce  a  sketch  of  our  own,  as 
illustrative  of  this  dealing  with  sacred  images  ?  It 
is  from  the  text  referred  to  above  : — 

"l.  THE  WAY  OF  AN    EAGLE  IN   THE   AIR    (PrOV.  XXX.  l8,  I9). 

**  The  works  of  creation  are,   when  they  are  considered, 
ways  to  the  Creator.      Wherever  the  soul  turns   itself,  it 


I  go      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

finds  God  in  the  very  same  objects  through  which  it  forsook 
Him.  Thus,  in  all  ages,  if  the  things  and  objects  of  nature 
have  been  mysterious,  the  mind,  fruitful  in  contemplation 
has  turned  those  objects  into  reflections  of  Divine  wisdom ; 
and  in  the  Book  of  God  we  find  them  turned  into  the 
deepest  and  highest  wisdom.  Thus,  in  these  words  of  Agur, 
many  things  became  to  him  the  inlets  of  wise  reflection. 
Especially  he  said,  'I  stQ four  wonderful  things:  i.  An 
eagle  in  the  air ;  that  sublime  thing,  overcoiiiiag,  walking 
on  the  wings  of  the  wind,  sailing  through  the  thunderstorm. 
How  wonderful  !  living  where  lightnings  play,  able  to  gaze 
at  the  sun  ; '  this,  he  said,  is  wonderful — '  the  way  of  an 
eagle  in  the  air.'  2.  A  serpent,  that  long,  cruel  creature, 
its  coils,  its  rapid  spring,  its  strange  interlocking  of  rings, 
its  marvellous  vertebrae,  this  is  wonderful — *  the  way  of  a 
serpent  upon  a  rock.'  3.  Man  imitating  nature — '  the  way 
of  a  ship  in  the  sea ' — that  dead,  yet  living  bird  of  art  and 
science ;  and  still,  after  all  these  years  have  passed,  art  has 
nothing  more  graceful,  more  amazingly  buoyant  and  natural, 
than  '  the  way  of  a  ship  in  the  sea.'  4.  And,  more  wonder- 
ful than  all,  the  relations  of  hearts.  How  two  people,  who 
never  saw  each  other  before,  meet,  and  how  a  life-long  re- 
lationship rises,  so  that  if  one  heart  is  torn  from  the  other, 
the  survivor  pines  and  almost  dies, — '  The  way  of  a  man 
with  a  maid.' 

"  I  touch  one  of  these  wonders — '  the  way  of  an  eagle  in 
the  air.'  And  yet,  we  say,  the  eagle  is  one  of  the  highest  and 
most  famous  images  of  the  Book  of  God.  When  Ezekiel 
beheld  his  first  great  vision,  he  saw  God's  government 
carried  on  by  four  agencies,  of  which  *  the  fourth  had  the 
face  of  an  eagle  '  (Ezek.  x.  14),  and  like  this  was  the  vision 
of  John  in  Revelation  iv.  7 — '  the  fourth  creature  was  like 
a  flying  eagle.'  Not  very  difficult  is  the  interpretation  here; 
so  God  carries  on  His  government ;  there  is  that  in  its 
mode  of  procedure  which  answers  to  such  a  sublime  analogy. 
The  eagle  is  evidently  the  figure  for  Diviner  things  through 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         191 

all  the  Fathers,  and  in  most  ages ;  while  St.  Matthew's  has 
been  the  Gospel  to  which  has  been  assigned  the  Lion — the 
Gospel  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God ;  and  to  St.  Mark,  the  Man — the  more  human  aspects  ; 
and  to  the  more  sacrificial  Gospel  of  St.  Luke,  the  Ox  ; — to 
St.  John  has  been  assigned  the  Eagle.  His  is  the  Gospel  of 
the  heights  of  Divine  contemplation  and  Divine  love.  He 
sets  forth  our  Lord's  Godhead  in  the  higher  sense.  Every- 
thing earthly  with  him  only  introduces  things  heavenly  ;  the 
Divine  attributes  break  always  through  the  veil  of  words. 
As  St.  Augustine  says,  '  How  sublime  ought  those  things  to 
be  of  which  he  treats  who  is  compared  to  the  eagle.' 
Thus  the  very  ways  of  God  Himself,  in  His  government 
and  administration,  are  as  '  the  way  of  an  eagle  in  the  air,' 
But  we  purpose  here  to  look  for  hints  of  the  Divine  life  in 
man  from  following  the  way  of  the  eagle  in  the  air,  and  we 
shall  enlarge  a  little  on  four  remarks  : — 
I.  It  is  heavy,  and  yet  it  flies. 
IL  The  air  resists  its  flight,  and  yet  it  flies. 

III.  The  resistance  helps  it,  and  therefore  it  flies. 

IV.  There  are  extraordinary  and  Divine  contrivances  to 
aid  it,  and  therefore  it  flies. 

"I.  It  is  heavy,  and  yet  it  flies. — It  weighs  ten,  fourteen,  we 
believe,  twenty  pounds.  How  remarkable  that  it  should 
overcome  its  gravitation,  that  its  weight  should  even  be  a 
momentum  to  it ;  not  like  a  balloon,  a  part  of  the  air,  as  it 
were,  carried  to  and  fro  of  the  air,  borne  hither  and  thither, 
but  always  a  weight,  yet  ever  able  to  fly  ;  is  not  this  wonder- 
ful ?  This  is  the  way  of  the  eagle  in  the  air.  This  also 
should  be  the  way  of  the  human  soul ;  the  soul  has  its  gra- 
vitation to  overcome — is  there  not  a  weight?  What  is  the 
first  thing  in  the  Christian  course  ?  Is  it  not  the  *  laying 
aside  of  every  weight '  ?  Does  not  every  one  feel  this  ?  To 
be  a  man,  to  be  a  woman,  is  to  have  the  weight  that  fastens 
to  the  earth,  and  would  keen  us  here  for  ever  •   it  is  in 


192      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

matter,  which  hangs  upon  us  heavy,  like  lead ;  it  is  in  the 
blood,  it  is  in  the  passions,  it  forms  temperament.  Chris- 
tian !  you  must  fly.  The  flesh  is  weak  in  that  it  is  heavy. 
Can  weighty  things  ascend  ?  think  of  the  way  of  the  eagle 
in  the  air,  and  overcome.  Then,  make  the  sublime  descrip- 
tion of  Elihu  in  Job  yours  (Job  xxxix.  27-29),  'Mount  up, 
and  make  thy  nest  on  high,  dwell  and  abide  on  the  rock, 
upon  the  crag  of  the  rock,  and  the  strong  place.' 

"  II.  Remark,  of  the  way  of  the  eagle  in  the  air,  the  air 
resists  it,  and  yet  it  flies.  The  air  which  around  you  pre- 
vents, by  its  weight,  your  falling,  resists  the  eagle  also  in 
advancing.  It  is  gross  and  heavy  in  itself,  and  there  is  a 
pressure  upon  it  from  without,  yet  wonderful  is  the  way  of 
the  eagle  in  the  air.  So  you  must  fly,  and  let  us  say  that 
one  thing  by  which  we  know  we  fly  is  resistance ;  a  feather 
does  not  fly,  a  balloon  does  not  fly,  a  kite  does  not  fly, — 
these  float,  there  is  no  resistance.  There  is  resistance  in 
ourselves ;  at  first  we  do  not  desire  to  rise,  we  find  the 
earth  tempting  and  pleasant  to  our  selfishness,  and,  as 
Charles  Wesley  says, — 

'  Angels  your  march  oppose. 
Who  still  in  strength  excel ; 
Your  secret,  sworn  eternal  foes, 
Countless,  invisible ; 

*  With  rage  that  never  ends, 
Their  hellish  arts  they  try  ; 
Legions  of  dire  malicious  fiends, 
And  spirits  throned  on  high.' 

"Thus  it  is  a  wrestling ;  '  the  prince  of  power  in  the  air 
works  in  the  children  of  disobedience.'  Thus  we  have 
*  spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places.'  Yet  you  must  make 
your  way  like  that  of  the  eagle  in  the  air.  And  how  hard — 
who  overcomes?  how  hardly  shall  they,  for  whom  the 
world  has  done  its  best,  'mount  up  with  wings,'  their  way  as 
that  of  an  eagle  in  the  air! 


CONCERNING   THE  IMAGINATION         193 

"III.  This  is  a  negative  side;  there  is  a  positive— the  way 
of  the  eagle  in  the  air — it  is  when  the  resistance  helps  it,  and 
therefore  it  flies.  There  is  vital  force  within,  and  not  only 
so,  the  air  is  elastic.  As  it  flies  it  beats  on  the  wing,  but,  as 
it  beats,  by  its  own  hard  blows  on  the  air,  every  blow  lifts 
the  wing  up  again,  and  there  is  a  wonderful  arrangement  in 
those  wings  to  air ;  and  so  the  air  gives  way,  and  the  tri- 
umphant bird  passes  through.  This  is  the  action  of  a  wing, 
one  hundred  and  fifty  strokes  in  a  minute,  I  understand. 
So  swift,  so  rapid ;  seemingly  so  slow,  and  yet  so  really  swift. 
Hence  the  Apostle's  jubilant  shout,  *  We  are  troubled  on 
every  side,  yet  not  distressed,  cast  down,  not  destroyed.'  So 
we  are  helped ;  *  When  my  heart  is  overwhelmed,  lead  me 
to  the  rock  that  is  higher  than  I.'  *  Because  Thou  hast  been 
my  help,'  etc.  God  knows  this.  Do  you  remember  an 
admirable  paper  by  the  Country  Parson,  on  '  Men  who  have 
Carried  Weight  in  Life  '  ?  Some  men's  progress  seems  so 
small  compared  with  that  of  others' — slow,  ah,  but  although 
to  you  they  seem  to  make  no»progress,  the  angels  see  that 
they  do.     Theirs  is  the  way  of  the  eagle  in  the  air. 

"  IV.  There  are  extraordinary  and  Divine  contrivances  to  help, 
and  tlierefore  it  flies.  It  is  a  wonderful  picture  of  the  univer- 
sality of  the  arrangement, — the  Divine  pliability  and  adjust- 
ment of  the  laws  of  nature  ;  that  upper  convex  surface  of 
the  wing  ;  that  lower  concavity  of  each  wing,  a  kind  of 
umbrella,  turned  inside  out,  to  catch  the  wind,  and  so 
becoming  a  valve,  so  that  the  force  may  be  gained  below, 
and  be  harmless  and  helpful  above;  every  feather  is  a 
valve.  This  is  the  way  of  the  eagle  in  the  air.  And  now, 
canit  be  thought  that  God  has  designed  such  uwiderful  con- 
trivances  for  a  poor  bird's  tving,  and  none  for  souls  ?  nay, 
what  contrivances  and  helps  has  God  given  !  they  are  in 
our  spirits  themselves,  in  their  mould  and  make.  There  is 
concealed  strength  in  souls  for  dark  hours ;  powers,  abor- 
tive and  unknown,  waiting  to  be  employed ;  these  faculties 

13 


194      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

were  not  made  for  night  and  for  sin,  they  were  for  the  soul. 
Thus  come  the  special  provisions  of  grace,  grace  is  spiritual 
co?iirivance,  and  in  every  experience  'He  giveth  more  grace.^ 
And  so  the  way  of  the  eagle  in  the  air. 

"  What  an  eagle  was  Paul,  who  saw  afar  off,  entered  into, 
and  saw  unspeakable  things  !  Behold  him  there  gazing  on  the 
sun  from  his  rock, — '  None  of  these  things  move  me,'  '  I  am 
persuaded,'  etc.  What  an  eagle  was  John,  who  saw  a  door 
opened  in  heaven,  the  Lord  in  the  midst  of  the  golden  candle- 
sticks, and  left  his  testimony,  '  That  which  we  have  seen 
and  heard,'  etc.,  '  declare  we ' !  What  an  eagle  was  Isaiah, 
the  o'd  man  who  said,  '  They  that  wait  on  the  Lord,'  etc  ! 

'■'■Now  apply.  Are  you  conscious  of  the  weight?  Do  you 
resist?  Do  you  feel  obstacles  falling,  giving  way?  Do  you 
feel  and  find  Divine  help  ?  Have  you  glimpses  ?  and  do 
you  find  affections  rising  ? 

"  Hereafter,  you  shall  have  exceeding  great  and  eternal 
weight  of  glory.  Look  on  the  low  scenes  of  the  earth,  on 
the  sun,  moon,  and  battle-plains  beneath ;  you  shall  enter 
into  the  secret  place  of  the  Most  High,  the  chambers  of 
everlasting  rest." 

We  dare,  at  the  risk  of  seeming  conceited,  to  say 
our  plan  suggests  a  more  judicious  use  of  the  text 
than  the  suggestion  of  Father  Gousset. 

May  we  give  a  second  illustration  from  our  own 
notes  of  sermons  } 

"ii. — god's  righteousness  like  the  great  mountains 
(Ps.  XXX.  6). 

"  Great  mountains  !  few  of  us  have  seen  them,  but  there 
are  those  who,  having  seen  them,  find  their  hearts  almost 
aching  to  behold  them  again.  How  is  it  they  are  so  awfully, 
yet  so  venerably  and  beautifully  dear  to  us?      They  are 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         195 

only  dead  masses  of  unfeeling  rock,  yet  they  possess  the 
power  to  awaken  in  us  all  feelings ;  they  are  always  differing, 
and  changing,  and  yet  they  are  always  the  same ;  nights 
and  storms  roll  down  upon  them,  and  clothe  and  conceal 
them;  and  then  mornings  come,  and  sunsets  and  sunrisings 
behold  those  mists  wrought  into  rose-hues  by  rays  that 
sleep  there  lovingly.  They  hold  the  thunders — often  when 
it  is  clear  below,  storms  seem  to  live  and  contend  like  spirits 
there,  and  long,  low,  protracted  thunders  mutter,  as  if  spirits 
talked  in  their  recesses,  from  peak  to  peak,  from  crag  to 
crag.  Snows  and  ice  clothe  their  summits  perpetually. 
The  traveller,  among  their  lower  passes,  hears  the  boom 
and  toll,  and  says,  'That  is  an  avalanche  falling.'  Out  of 
their  heart,  as  he  passes  along,  the  wanderer  beholds  the 
vast  glacier — the  stiffened  ice-torrents  that  '  stopped  amidst 
their  maddest  plunge;'  ice  falls  now,  that  down  enormous 
ravines  sweep  amain  ;  but  there  they  stand,  pillars  of  creation, 
monumental  piles  of  past  existences,  tombs  of  old  creations, 
mausoleums,  cenotaphs  of  ancient  worlds,  wonders  and 
mysteries.  All  things  are  mysteries ;  but  mountains — so 
human,  yet  so  cold ;  so  mighty  and  massive,  and  yet  so 
silent  and  so  unmoving — the  heart  must  be  cold  indeed 
that  does  not  feel  the  power  of  the  great  mountains. 

"  David  looked  up  at  them,  and  he  said,  They  are  like 
the  rectitude — the  holiness,  the  righteousness  of  God.  He 
had  not  seen  the  greatest,  Mont  Blanc,  the  Himalajas,  the 
Andes ;  but  he  saw  Horeb,  and  Sinai,  and  Lebanon ;  and 
there  is  that,  I  suppose,  about  all  these  which  makes  them 
seem  more  than  they  are,  even  as  the  small  hills  of 
Cumberland  and  Scotland  do  for  us  almost  as  much  as 
Switzerland,  the  Alps  and  Apennines.  You  and  I  also  can 
step  out  this  evening,  and  talk  with  God  among  the  moun- 
tains. Let  us  talk  of  God — how  high,  how  vast !  That 
word  God! — what  mysteries  does  it  hold,  does  it  represent ! 
*  The  thought,'  said  Job,  '  of  God  was  a  terror  to  me,  and 
by  reason  of  His  highness  I  could  not  endure.'     We  saw 


196     THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


how  Job  found  all  the  suggestions  of  the  great  mountains 
bringing  the  mind  to  reflect  upon  the  inscrutableness  of 
God,  but  all  as  hints  and  suggestions.  What  a  slight  thing 
is  man  traversing  the  shoulder  of  some  steep  and  awful 
mountain !  What  an  insect !  Yet  he  lives  and  it  is  dead 
and  cold.  To  him  it  may,  with  its  labyrinths  of  peaks,  and 
passes,  and  glaciers,  be  called  incomprehensible  :  its  cold, 
its  glaring  heat,  its  regions,  and  platforms  of  storm,  aspects 
which  make  it  like  an  abstraction  ;  again,  which  make  it 
like  some  dread  personification  and  embodiment  of  power. 
David  looked  at  it,  and  thought :  *  Hoar  and  solemn  peak, 
thou  art  like  the  righteousness  of  God,  manifold  in  aspect, 
but  always  one,  and  in  thyself  always  still.' 

"  I.  I  suppose,  what  David  first  meant  to  imply  by  this 
righteousness  of  God  like  the  great  mountains  was, — that  it 
7vas  everywhere  to  be  seen.  A  mountain  is  lofty,  prominent, 
can  be  seen  at  a  great  distance  ;  why,  the  Himalayas  can  be 
seen  nearly  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  away.  Grandly  it 
rises  out  of  the  vale  beneath,  like  a  monarch  over  the  scene. 
Scripture,  you  note — you  ought  to  notice  it — involves  itself 
in  the  righteousness  of  God,  not  even  in  His  goodness  so 
much  as  in  His  righteousness,  not  in  His  love  so  much  as  in 
His  holiness.  I  do  not  wonder  at  this ;  the  most  anxious 
question  a  man  can  put  is  this,  '  Will  the  Judge  of  all  the 
earth  do  right?'  No  question  is  so  immense,  so  vital; 
that  question  settled  well^  all  must  be  well.  It  therefore 
opens  grand  views  of  the  righteousness  of  God,  involves 
itself  in  this,  stakes  itself  on  this.  This  is  what  short- 
sighted and  selfish  man  thinks  he  cannot  always  see.  But 
mountains  are  distinctly  seen,  so  the  righteousness  of  God 
is  distinctly  seen.  His  rectitude,  infinitely  right ;  the  Bible 
is  the  revelation  of  righteousness ;  and  the  long  ages  as  they 
roll,  to  those  able  to  read,  tell  the  tale  of  righteousness. 
Read  it  in  law,  that  groove  and  line  of  rail  laid  down  by 
God;  read  it  in  nations,  their  rise,  decline,  and  fall ;  read  it 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         197 

in  conscience,  that  pulse  of  a  moral  nature  throbbing  after 
right  in  man;  immortal  and  immovable  principles  in  nature, 
in  the  history  of  men,  in  the  human  soul.  But  what  is  it  in 
God  !  What  know  we  of  righteousness  ?  Oh,  we  must  not 
look  in  ourselves  to  see  it ;  we  must  look  out  and  look  t4p. 
It  is  there — vast,  immutable,  eternal,  it  is  like  the  great 
mountains.  Elevate  the  tone  of  your  thought ;  do  not 
indulge  in  the  cynic's  sneers,  those  'arrows  which  fly  by 
day.'  Believe — and  see  it  in  God's  right ;  our  sense  of  self 
belies  us.  Suppose  we  died  now,  and  had  no  immortality, 
still  could  we  not  look  up  with  tearful  eyes  and  bless  Him 
for  all,  incomparably  beyond  ourselves  and  our  desert  ? 
Where  is  this  righteousness — where  is  it .?  All  this  agony, 
misery,  ruin  !  well,  it  is  working  through  all  that.  '  I  will,' 
said  David,  '  remember  the  years  of  the  right  hand  of  the 
Most  High.'  I  will  remember  His  eternity,  and  my  brief 
time. 

"  n.  But  although  so  prominent,  its  foundations  are  out  of 
sight. — '  Who  sunk  thy  sunless  pillars  deep  in  earth  ?'  The 
highest  mountain's  peak,  it  is  said,  is  not  more  than  five 
miles  ;  the  depth  of  the  sea  has  been,  I  believe,  ascertained 
to  be  eleven,  and  here  are  the  roots,  nay,  rather,  the  body, 
and  the  portions  of  the  everlasting  hills,  like  the  great 
mountains.  And  all  these  weighed  !  *  The  mountains  in 
scales,  the  hills  in  a  balance!'  Exact  their  proportion, 
literally,  to  their  dynamic  intensity  or  force,  regulated  for 
many  purposes,  so  living,  yet  out  of  sight.  And,  yet,  how 
often  the  roots  of  God's  righteousness,  though  concealed, 
are  revealed  to  great  experiences,  as  when  Jonah  says  in  his 
grief,  '  he  went  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  mountains,'  or 
David  sings  that  (2  Sam.  xxii.  16)  'the  foundations  of  the 
world  were  discovered.' 

"  HI.  Like  the  great  mountains,  the  righteousness  may  be 
ascertained,    although   not    comprehended. — Mountains — the 


198     THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

highest — may  be  measured ;  men  have  measured  mountains. 
Very  wonderful  are  the  achievements  of  trigonometry ;  and 
many  have  no  hesitation  in  pronouncing  all  about  God,  His 
righteousness,  and  the  Trinity,  who  would  be  quite  at  a 
loss  here.  You  see  the  men  with  their  posts  and  chains, 
carefully  taking  the  base  line  for  their  calculations,  then 
they  will  reduce  that  base  line  by  multiples  and  fractions, 
and  then  by  their  theodolites  they  will  carry  on  the  process 
of  what  they  call  tria?igulation,  and  so  measure  without 
foot,  or  rule,  or  step,  heights  of  buildings,  mountains,  and 
distances  of  worlds.  Now,  God's  righteousness  is  like  the 
great  mountains,  God  Himself  gives  to  us  a  base  of  calcula- 
tion, and  it  is  '  the  righteousness  of  God  which  is  in  Christ 
Jesus  our  Lord ; '  and  then,  as  the  surveyor  goes  on  from 
point  to  point,  calculation  to  calculation,  so  '  the  righteous- 
ness of  God  is  revealed,'  as  Paul  declares,  *  from  faith  to 
faith.*  Christ  makes  Himself  finite  that  I  may  ascend  to 
infinite  conclusions,  but  there  must  be  the  base  line  for 
commencement ;  then  all  follows.  How  wonderfully  Paul 
went  on  from  this.  How  Divine  and  how  sublime.  *  Oh 
the  depths  !  oh  the  heights  I  * 

"  Hence,  IV.  Like  the  great  mountains,  God's  righteous- 
ness is  rich  and  precious.     Mountains  are  rich : — 

"  I.  In  minerals,  their  caves,  their  recesses,  gold,  coal, 
silver  ;  there  the  gem,  the  ruby  lurks  ;  there  the  opal,  with 
its  soft  edges ;  there  the  basilisk  glare  of  the  emerald  ;  the 
sheen  of  the  ruby.  What  streams  in  God's  righteousness, 
unknown,  unseen,  unresolved,  infinite  plan,  power — all 
righteous  in  infinite  purpose  and  in  promise  ! 

"  2.  In  pastures. — Mountains  furnish  the  way  for  the 
nations ;  there  they  spread  along  the  hill-sides.  Nations 
have  sought  them.  And  nomadic  and  agricultural  people 
have  followed  their  chain  along  the  hill-side. 

"3.  In  refreshments. — Illustration — Rivers  gushing  from 
mountains,  as  in  Phnlimmon. 


CONCERNING   THE  IMAGINATION.         199 


"  4.  In  fortifications. — What,  then,  is  His  glorious  position 
of  whom  it  is  said,  '^  His  foundation  is  in  the  holy 
mountains '  ?  " 

We  spoke  of  the  evil  method  of  allegory,  or  the 
continued  figure.  We  could  give  you  many  illustra- 
tions of  this  from  the  old  writers ;  they  are  often 
like  the  old  pageantry  which  met  Elizabeth  in  her 
royal  progress.  They  attempt  to  embody  abstract 
qualities,  and  they  often  fail  in  their  attempt.  We 
remember  one,  in  which  we  are  told  how  Truth  lived 
in  great  honour ;  but  through  the  envy  of  her 
enemies,  she  was  disgraced,  banished  out  of  the  city, 
sitting  on  a  dunghill,  sad  and  discontented;  a  chariot 
comes  by,  attended  with  a  great  troop,  towards  her. 
Soon  Truth  perceived  who  it  was — her  greatest 
enemy,  the  Lady  Lie,  clad  in  a  changeable  coloured 
taffeta,  her  coach  covered  with  clouds  of  all  the 
colours  of  the  rainbow,  Impudence  and  Hypocrisy 
attending  on  one  side,  Slander  and  Deiractiofi  on 
the  other,  and  Perjury  ushering  along  many  more — 
more  than  a  good  many  in  the  train. 

When  the  Lady  Lie  came  up  to  Trutli^  she  com- 
manded her  to  be  carried  captive  for  the  greater 
triumph;  at  night  she  fared  well,  and  would  want  for 
nothing ;  only  when  morning  came  the  Lady  Lie 
said  she  had  to  pay  ;  and  TrutJi  had  to  pay  for  all, 
and  the  next  night  was  like  the  last.  But  when  the 
Lady  Lie  was  brought  before  the  judge,  Ivipudoice 
and  Hypocrisy  justified  their  lady.  Perjtiry  cleared 
her,  and  Slander  and  Detraction  laid  all  the  blame 
with  Truth,  who,  in  her  turn,  was  called  upon  to  plead, 
and  when  she  could  only  say,  "  Not  guilty,"  and  was 


200     THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

about  to  be  condemned,  Time,  an  eloquent,  gra\e, 
experienced  counsellor,  stepped  up,  and  begged  to 
unravel  the  matter,  lest  the  innocent  should  suffer 
for  the  guilty.  Then  Time  began  to  dispel  the 
clouds  from  the  Lady  Lies  chariot,  unmasked  her 
ugliness,  and  unveiled  her  followers,  and  Truth  by 
Time  was  cleared  and  set  at  large. 

And  all  this  is  to  illustrate  the  Scripture  doctrine 
of  truth  ! 

Another  like  allegory,  often  used  in  the  pulpit, 
our  readers  will  know;  of  the  master  of  an  orchard 
who  committed  it  to  the  keeping  of  two  servants,  and 
went  on  his  journey  ;  but  one  was  blind,  and  one 
was  lame  ;  the  lame  one  saw  the  beauty  of  the  fruit 
and  told  it  to  the  blind  fellow,  and  he  said  :  "  Had  I 
the  use  of  my  limbs,  I  would  soon  be  master  of  those 
apples  ; "  and  the  blind  man  said,  "  Had  I  but  my 
eyes,  my  will  is  good  if  the  fruit  be  good  ;  "  so  they 
united  their  strength,  and  joined  their  forces  together. 
The  whole-blind  man  took  the  well-sighted  lame 
man,  and  so  they  reached  their  master's  apples,  and 
took  them  away.  When,  therefore,  the  master  re- 
turned, they  each  framed  his  own  excuse  ;  the  blind 
man  said  he  could  not  so  much  as  see  the  tree 
whereon  they  grew  ;  and  the  lame  man  said  he 
ought  not  to  be  suspected,  for  he  had  no  limbs  to 
climb.  But  the  wise  master  perceived  the  ignoble 
craft  of  his  two  servants,  he  put  them,  as  they  were, 
the  one  upon  the  other's  shoulders,  and  punished 
them  both  together.  And  all  this  is  to  show  that 
sin  is  neither  of  the  body  nor  the  soul,  but  it  is  the 
common  act  of  the  body  and  of  the  soul.  They  are 
Simeon  and   Levi,  brothers  and  partners  in  mischieft 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         201 

and  therefore  God,  in  His  just  judgment,  will  punish 
both  body  and  soul  together  if  not  repaired  and 
redeemed  by  Christ.  And  this  allegory,  first  derived 
from  the  Rabbins,  has  been  used  through  long 
generations  of  writers.* 

Imagination,  we  have  said,  seizes  the  innermost. 
And  this  is  the  definition  which  has  been  given  of 
it  by  Ruskin  ;  because  it  does  this,  it  realises  vividly, 
and  hence,  again,  it  represents  distinctly.  This  is 
not  the  time  nor  place  to  stay  to  analyse  the  faculty  ; 
but  these  are  its  functions  and  its  manifestation.  In 
its  exercise,  genius  is  in  its  highest  fulness.  It  is  the 
sum  of  all  highest  powers  in  man.  It  is,  in  its 
highest  exercise,  the  focus  and  complement  of  all 
human  power.  "  The  men  of  imagination,"  said 
Napoleon,  "  rule  the  world."  It  is,  in  highest  men, 
"  the  retina  of  the  universe."  j"  It  is  the  power  of 
heart  and  mind  made  intense  by  their  marriage.  It 
is  the  faculty  of  attention,  or  intensity  ;  it  is  not  the 
less  the  faculty  of  strong  affections.  It  may  be 
possible  to  have  the  imagination  of  fire  and  the 
heart  of  ice,  but  not  upon  the  objects  interesting  to 
it ;  towards  these,  it  is  at  once  affectionate  as  well 
as  clear  ;  truths,  either  of  Scripture  or  of  life,  read 
without  it,  are  like  truths  read  by  the  light  of  funeral 
torches  ;  but,  read  by  it,  they  are  read  by  daylight 
and  the  sun.     Thus,  in  descriptive  preaching,  while 

*  These,  and  many  more  such,  will  be  found  in  Spencer's 
"  Storehouse  of  Similes  "  (1658),  already  referred  to;  the  last  in 
Hyman  Hurwitz's  charming  and  delightful  book  of  "Hebrew 
Tales,"  an  invaluable  little  compendium  of  the  ancient  and 
uninspired  literature  of  the  Hebrews,  and  also  in  Coleridge's 
"Friend." 

t  Richter  ("Titan"). 


202      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

tame,  feeble,  and  learned  critical  correctness  paints 
with  painful  weariness,  a  something,  which  is  all 
prepared  as  carefully  as  colours  are  ground  down 
for  the  canvas,  and  foolishly  imagines  that  colour 
and  form  alone  are  necessary,  imagination,  with  one 
or  two  crayon  strokes,  realises  the  whole  picture  to 
the  eye.  Word-painting  is  often  the  subject  of  a 
sneer,  yet  it  is  the  power  of  the  poet,  that  truthful 
rendering  of  scenery  and  character,  which,  from 
Homer  to  Shakespeare,  and  from  Shakespeare  to 
Wordsworth,  or  Tennyson,  brings  the  object  described 
vividly  before  the  eye,  and  affects  the  sense  vividly  to 
realise.  If  this  be  the  poet's  purpose,  it  is  also  the 
preacher's.  Descriptive  sermons,  indeed,  seldom  read 
well  ;  audiences  are  usually  coarse  and  sensational  ; 
the  colours,  therefore,  are  too  often  glaring  and  sensa- 
tional, too.  Most  of  this  descriptive  work  is  like  the 
stained  glass  in  cathedrals  and  churches,  very  rich 
and  showy  and  perhaps  glorious,  but  not  perspicuous. 
Such  sermons,  like  such  windows,  need  the  stately 
roof  and  embowering  arch  ;  they  do  not  read  well  in 
the  study  or  the  household  room.  The  prismatic 
splendours  of  the  great  Chalmers,  or  Henry  Melvill, 
will  not  bear  the  quiet  of  the  student's  lonely  house. 
This  order  of  imagination  charms  and  delights,  but 
it  belongs  especially  to  the  speech  of  the  pleasant 
concert-like  sound  ;  it  flows  over  the  soul  a  wilder- 
ness of  delicious  melody  in  which  no  idea  is  received, 
usually  no  permanent  impression  made. 

The  writings  of  Dr.  Guthrie  are  fertile  as  fields 
in  their  suggestive  images — images  which,  on  right 
lips,  instantly  flash  out  meanings.  This  was  Dr. 
Guthrie's   characteristic,   as  thus  : — 


CONCERNING   THE  IMAGINATION.         203 


"who  hath  delivered  us  from  the  power  of  darkness. 

"  Sailing  once  along  a  coast  where  a  friend  had  suffered 
shipwreck,  the  scene  which  recalled  his  danger  filled  us 
with  no  fear.  Because,  while  his  ship,  on  the  night  she  ran 
ashore,  was  cutting  her  way  through  the  densest  fog,  we 
were  ploughing  the  waters  of  a  silver  sea,  where  noble  head- 
lands, and  pillared  cliffs,  and  scattered  islands,  and  surf- 
beaten  reefs,  stood  bathed  in  the  brightest  moonshine.  There 
was  no  danger,  just  because  there  was  no  darkness.  The 
thick  and  heavy  haze  is,  of  all  hazards,  that  which  the  wary 
seaman  holds  in  greatest  dread." 

"  UPON  his  head  were  many  crowns. 

"Inside  those  iron  gratings  that  protect  the  ancient  regalia 
of  our  kingdom,  vulgar  curiosity  sees  nothing  but  a  display 
of  jewels.  Its  stupid  eyes  are  dazzled  by  the  gems  that 
stud  the  crown  and  sceptre.  The  unreflecting  multitude  fix 
their  thoughts  and  waste  their  admiration  on  these.  They 
go  away  to  talk  of  their  beauty,  perhaps  to  covet  their 
possession ;  nor  do  they  estimate  the  value  of  the  crown 
but  by  the  price  which  its  pearls,  and  rubies,  and  diamonds, 
might  fetch  in  the  market. 

"The  eye  of  a  patriot,  gazing  thoughtfully  in  on  these  relics 
of  former  days,  is  all  but  blind  to  what  attracts  the  gaping 
group.  The  admiration  is  reserved  for  other  and  nobler 
objects.  He  looks  with  deep  and  meditative  interest  on 
that  rim  of  gold,  not  for  its  intrinsic  value,  but  because  it 
once  encircled  the  brow  of  Scotland's  greatest  king,  the  hero 
of  her  independence — Robert  Bruce.  Regarded  in  some 
such  light,  estimated  by  the  sufferings  endured  for  it,  how 
great  the  value  of  that  crown  which  Jesus  wears  !  What  a 
kingdom  that  which  cost  God  His  Son,  and  «-ost  that  Son 
His  life  1 " 

But  these  things  are  not,  as  we  have  said  elsewhere, 


204     THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

to  be  stuck  into  sermons  meretriciously,  like  wax  or 
paper  flowers.* 

We  almost  feel  as  if  we  cannot  too  often  repeat, 
as  a  law,  to  prevent  its  abuse,  and  wisely  to  conduct 
to  its  use,  that  imagination  seizes  the  innermost  ; 
shall  we,  then,  take  a  distinct  illustration  of  what  we 
mean  ?  It  is  from  a  sermon  of  our  Lord,  on  that 
memorable  occasion  when  a  lawyer  stood  up  tempt- 
ing Him,  and  began  to  question  the  great  Teacher  as 
to  the  law  and  limitation  of  benevolence — what  is  its 
nature  ? — what  is  its  extent  ?  "  Who,"  for  instance, 
"  is  my  neighbour  ?  "  Suppose  we  were  simply  de- 
scribing the  occasion,  and  we  said  to  a  circle  of 
persons  round  us,  who  had  never  heard  the  incident, 
—  cultivated  persons,  perhaps, — "Well,  how  do  you 
think  that  Jesus  answered  that  lawyer  ? "  "  Oh," 
perhaps  one  would  say,  "  He  defined  benevolence  as 
the  unselfish  love  of  being  in  general  ;  "  or  another 
would  say,  "  He  would,  most  likely,  show  how 
benevolence  seeks  the  ultimate  happiness  of  its 
object ; "  or,  perhaps,  another  would  say,  "  No 
doubt  such  a  great  Teacher  would  enter  nicely  into 
moral  distinctions, — would  show  the  origin  of  the 
social  affections,  and  clearly  and  logically  state,  on 
metaphysical  principles,  the  claims  which  man  has 
from  and  upon  his  fellow-man."  Jesus  gave  not  one 
of    these     definitions,     entered     into     no     analyses. 


*  There  are,  indeed,  collections  of  them,  such  as  Spenser's, 
already  referred  to,  and  the  similar  bulky  but  less  valuable 
predecessor,  "A  Treasury  or  Storehouse  of  Similes,  both 
Pleasant,  Delightful,  and  Profi  able,  for  all  Estates  of  Men 
in  general.  Newly  collected  into  Heads  and  Commonplaces." 
By  Robert  Cardway.  Printed  in  Old  Change,  Sign  of  Eagle 
and  Child.     1600. 


CONCERNING  THE  IMAGINATION.         205 

indulged  in  no  argument.  He  seized  the  innermost ; 
He  drew  a  picture  ;  He  told  a  story,  which  has 
affected  all  generations  ever  since,  of  a  certain  man 
who  went  down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho  and  fell 
among  thieves  ;  and  our  readers  know  the  rest. 

It  is  a  fine  subject,  the  province  of  imagination  in 
sacred  speech  and  oratory  :  we  venture  to  think, 
with  much  respect  for  a  great  deal  of  student 
culture  in  our  day,  that  this  is  sadly  missed  ;  little 
exegeses  and — may  we  dare  to  say  } — even  trifling 
criticisms  are  too  much  prized,  and  this  grand  power 
is  too  much  forgotten.  Much  of  our  preparation  for 
the  pulpit  reminds  us  of  the  great  Napoleon,  who 
placed  the  leading  mathematician  of  France  at  the 
head  of  an  important  Bureau,  but  declared  himself 
disappointed  in  the  result,  because,  as  he  said,  he 
always  found  him  occupied  with  the  infinitely  little; 
hence  it  is  that  a  glance  upon  a  text  from  the  eye, 
or  pen,  of  a  Goethe,  or  Ruskin,  or  Walter  Scott,  or 
other  such  minds,  leaves  a  satisfaction  which  a 
Delitzsch,  or  a  De  Wette,  or  a  Kurtz  fail  to  convey. 
Some  person  has  said  that  Raskin's  "Modern  Painters" 
is  the  best  of  all  the  commentaries  on  the  Bible,  and 
the  saying  will  only  seem  dark  to  those  dry  minds, 
unpoetic,  and  merely  pragmatic,  and  therefore 
unable  to  enter  into  the  magnificent  symbolism  of 
the  sacred  book;  and  let  the  reader  but  fancy  that, 
an  unimaginative  mind  attempting  to  read  or  to 
expound  the  lore  of  that  sacred  repository  of  all 
Oriental  illustration  and  imagery  ! 


CHAPTER  VII. 
DR.  EDWARD  ANDREWS, 

OF  WALWORTH. 

"Well,  it  puts  me  in  mind  of  a  conversation  between  a  complarent 
poplar  and  a  grim  old  oak  which  I  overheard  the  other  day.  The 
poplar  said  that  it  grew  up  quite  straight,  heavenwards ;  that  all  its 
branches  pointed  the  same  way,  and  always  had  done  so.  Turning  to 
the  oak,  which  it  had  been  talking  at  before  for  some  time,  the  poplar 
went  on  to  remark  that  it  did  not  wish  to  say  anything  unfriendly  to  a 
brother  of  the  forest,  but  that  warped  and  twisted  branches  seemed  to 
show  strange  struggles.  The  tall  thing  concluded  its  oration  by  saying 
that  it  grew  up  very  fast ;  and  tliat,  when  it  had  done  growing,  it  did 
not  suffer  itself  to  be  made  into  huge  floating  engines  of  destruction. 
But  different  trees  had  different  tastes.  There  was  then  a  sound  from 
the  old  oak  like  an  *  Ah  1  '  or  a  '  Whew  ! '  or  perhaps  it  was  only  the 
wind  amongst  its  resisting  branches  ;  and  the  gaunt  creature  said  that 
it  had  had  ugly  winds  from  without,  and  cross-grained  impulses  from 
within  ;  that  it  knew  it  had  thrown  out  awkwardly  a  branch  here  and 
a  branch  there,  which  would  never  come  qi  ite  right  again,  it  feared  ; 
that  men  worked  it  up,  sometimes  for  good,  and  sometimes  for  evil — 
but  that  at  any  rate  it  had  not  lived  for  nothing.  The  poplar  began 
again  immediately  (for  this  kind  of  tree  can  talk  for  ever)  ;  but  I  patted 
the  old  oak  approvingly,  and  went  on." — Friends  in  Council, 
Despair. 

"    A  ND  let  me  beg  you  to  be  quick  about  it,  sir, 

■aV   for   ministers  are  soon  forgotten  !  "  said   Dr. 

Winter  Hamilton  to  the  printer  in  his  study,  as  he 

handed  him  the  last  sheets  of  the  "  Life  of  Ely." 

Ah  I  it  seems  strange — and   let  us  hope  that  to 


DR,  EDWARD  ANDREWS.  207 

some  amongst  us,  at  any  rate,  it  seems  painful — 
that  talent  and  genius  drop  from  their  stations  in 
the  pulpit,  and  elsewhere,  and  that  so  few  remember 
to  regret  how  soon  our  most  eminent  teachers  are 
forgotten  ;  for,  indeed,  eloquence  of  an  unusual 
character  has  been  heard  in  our  own  day.  Genius 
has  flashed,  and  lightened  over  entranced  and  enrap- 
tured audiences  ;  there  have  been  learning,  piety,  and 
diction,  rousing  and  subduing  :  and  now  all  so  hushed 
and  forgotten — forgotten,  save  by  the  select  and  loving 
few.  It  is  but  recently,  or  it  appears  but  recently, 
that  we  heard  the  voice  of  Howell,  of  Long  Acre, 
vehement,  earnest,  and  impetuous  ;  and  Fletcher,  of 
Stepney,  so  thoughtful,  so  dignified,  and  instructive  ; 
and  Hyatt,  of  the  Tabernacle,  so  impassioned, 
earnest,  and  impressive,  fervid  as  the  voice  of  that 
John  who  cried  in  the  wilderness — "  Prepare  ye  the 
way  of  the  Lord,  make  His  paths  straight."  A  day 
or  two  since,  and  we  listened  to  the  humour  of  Hill  ; 
to  Wilkes,  so  symmetrical,  yet  so  rustic  ;  to  the 
pious  breathings  of  Harrington  Evans,  and  Watts 
Wilkinson  ;  to  the  homely,  and  tender,  and  beautiful 
genius  of  VVaugh,  to  his  latest  day  fresh  as  a  moun- 
tain daisy  ;  to  the  impetuous  and  gorgeous  Chalmers  ; 
the  princely,  the  illustrious  Hall  ;  the  erring  and 
yearning  Irving,  brilliant  and  mystic,  like  the  belt  of 
a  theological  Orion, — all  gone  !  Belfrage  and  Huegh, 
so  hearty  and  loving ;  and  Christmas  Evans,  and 
John  Elias,  and  Williams,  of  Wern, — all  gone  !  And 
poor  Edward  Parsons,  well  worthy  of  some  pitying 
tears,  and  compelling,  from  his  unhonoured  grave, 
our  mourning  admiration  for  the  classic  fulness  and 
elegance   of   his    genius.     And    Benjamin    Parsons, 


•2o8     THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

broad,  strong,  rugged,  and  sound  as  an  English  oak  ; 
and  Collyer,  graceful  and  pliant  as  a  mountain  ash. 
And  Robert  McAll,  the  Cicero  of  Nonconformity, 
as  Hall  was  the  Demosthenes.  And  Thorp  the 
elder  ;  and,  alas  for  him  !  Thorp  the  younger,  too. 
And  Jay,  one  of  the  old  Puritans  risen  from  the 
dead  ;  and  Thomas  Roberts, — all  gone !  And 
Stratten,  the  grand  theologian  ;  and  James  Parsons, 
an  impersonal  electrical  flash  ;  and  Andrew  Reed, 
the  Father  of  Charities  ;  and  Thomas  Binney, — head 
and  shoulders  above  all  comparison  and  competition, 
— all  gone  ! 

"  Gone  !    Are  they  gone,  who  brightly  shone  ? 

Oh  gloomy,  chilly  night ! 
Now  left  alone,  we  deeply  moau 

Their  much-lamented  light. 
The  Prophets,  too  ! — the  Prophets,  too  1 

Why  do  they  cease  to  cry  ? 
Will  not  kind  Heaven  the  lamp  renew  ? 

Must,  too,  the  Prophets  die  ?  " 

Long  is  the  list,  and  interesting  to  revert  to  it : 
all  these  men  had  their  faults,  their  eccentricities  ; 
most  of  them,  too,  possessed  a  broad  individuality  of 
character,  from  which  the  more  modern  ministry 
shrinks  terrified  ;  they  represented  a  state  of  society 
— or  most  did — more  free  and  unfettered  than  ours  ; 
they  had  not  trimmed  themselves  down  to  a  "  pale 
unanimity."  But  whatever  the  breadth  of  their 
mental  proportions,  whatever  the  measure  of  their 
love  or  their  labour,  they  have  left  us  ;  and  we 
only  revert  to  their  names  as  illustrations  of  the 
rapidity  with  which  our  eminent  men  depart,  not 
only    from    the    world,    but    from    the    memory    of 


DR.   EDWARD  ANDREWS.  209 

survivors  too.  How  sweet  it  is  to  walk  in  the  bye- 
lanes  of  biography  and  memory,  and  ahght  on 
forgotten  names,  still  smiling,  still  fragrant,  like  a 
violet,  or  forget-me-not,  although  lost  to  sight. 

Did  our  readers  know  Dr.  Edward  Andrews,  of 
Walworth  ?  Our  boyhood's  enthusiasm  was  often 
kindled  in  his  costly  temple.  Magnificent  man  ! 
Endowed  with  all  the  most  eminent  attractions  of 
genius,  in  an  affluent  degree  ;  yet  who  now  pro 
nounces  his  name  ?  or  who  ever  culled  the  flowers 
to  bind  a  garland  round  his  headstone  ?  At  one 
period  he  was  one  of  the  most  popular  preachers  of 
the  metropolis;  his  chapel,  although  perhaps  it  would 
not  strike  the  eye  as  so  splendid  now,  appeared,  in 
its  munificence  of  fancies,  extraordinary  then  ; — 
the  stained  glass,  and  the  Aaronic  and  Mosaic 
figures,  the  Baptist  and  St.  Paul  in  carving — the 
rich,  loud  organ,  and  the  altar-piece  -  all  this,  and 
the  geometrical  pulpit,  gave  you  certainly  no  idea  of 
the  dissenting  conventicle  ;  and  once,  when  indeed 
we  were  little  better  than  a  boy,  we  ventured  to 
doubt  the  propriety  of  all  this,  lor  our  ideas  were 
cast  in  a  mould  of  the  most  simple  Puritanism — • 
blessings  upon  our  dear  and  long  since  sainted  in- 
structor ! — "  God,"  said  the  Doctor,  "  should  be 
worshipped  with  the  best  of  everything,  my  boy — ■ 
best  architecture,  best  painting,  best  music,  best 
sculpture,  best  poetry,  and  best  genius."  Our 
readers  may  depend  upon  it,  this  was  a  settler  ;  and, 
now  that  we  see  the  sophistry  more,  we  are  yet 
more  disposed  to  admit  the  argument. 

And  Edward  Andrews  was  endowed  with  genius. 
Like  most  men  of  genius,  like  all  men  of  lofty  genius, 

14 


210     THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

he  held  his  worth  too  cheaply  ;  he  never  could 
appraise  himself  at  his  proper  value.  There  were 
few  things,  by  all  account,  which  he  could  not  do ;  yet, 
perhaps,  there  was  scarce  anything  he  attempted  to 
do  ;  musician,  painter,  linguist,  philosopher,  poet,  he 
was  a  wonderfully  many-sided  man  ;  a  wit  and 
humorist,  he  yet  illustrated  the  strange  perversity 
of  humanity  by  yielding  his  faith  to  the  narrow 
dogmas  of  the  most  cold  and  frigid  hyperism  ;  but 
the  people  would  crowd  to  listen  to  the  outshinings 
of  his  genius.  His  was  the  power  that  could  seize 
the  abstract  fact  of  science  and  hold  it  up,  replete 
with  the  beauties  of  poetry,  as  an  illustration  for  the 
pulpit.  His  fancy  was  daringly  imitable  ;  humour 
he  could  not  altogether  restrain,  although  he  reined 
it  and  made  it  most  subservient  to  the  purposes  of 
instruction.  He  blurted  his  sentences  forth  after  a 
similar  fashion  to  the  late  lamented  George  Dawson; 
but  then  as  they  came  they  gleamed  radiant  from 
the  mint  of  genius  and  deep-heartedness,  which  is — 
may  we  not  say .-' — ever  the  companion  of  genius. 
Alas  !  for  the  quick-glancing  glory  of  that  grey  eye  ; 
tongue,  must  we  hear  it — eye,  must  we  see  it  no 
more  ?  Their  like  we  have  never  found  since,  and 
never  shall. 

All  London,  at  one  time,  heard  of  the  eccentrici- 
ties of  Dr.  Andrews.  He  was  so  perfectly  free  from 
conventionalism — so  wholly  a  child — he  did  not 
know  that  what  he  did  and  said  was  strange.  It 
lay  upon  his  mind — what  could  he  do  but  utter  it? 
We  very  well  remember  one  Sabbath  morning,  after 
pursuing  his  way  through  his  discourse,  happily 
and  beautifully,   noticing  all   the  particulars  beneath 


DR.    EDWARD  ANDREWS.  21 1 

the  two  first  heads,  he  came  to  a  dead  stand.  "Now, 
look,"  said  he,  "  as  I  came  up  those  pulpit  stairs,  I 
had  all  the  parts  of  this  sermon  well  written  on  my 
mind  ;  and  now  I  cannot  call  to  mind  this  third  head. 
Organist !  strike  up  a  symphony,  or  a  doxology  ; —  it 
will  come — it  will  come,  presently  ! "  And  then, 
while  the  organ  played,  simply  as  a  child  he 
leaned  over  the  pulpit,  and  when  the  tones  ceased, 
"  Yes,"  said  he,  "  yes,  I  have  it  ;  how  remarkable  !  " 
and,  instead  of  giving  us  the  lost  head  of  discourse, 
he  branched  out  into  a  dissertation  upon  the  laws  of 
relative  suggestion  and  association  ;  he  returned  to 
the  "  head,"  however,  afterwards.  So  the  crying  of 
a  child  never  produced  in  him  any  irritability  ;  he 
would  sometimes  look  at  the  mother  and  say,  "  Poor 
thing  !  poor  thing !  Better  take  it  out — won't  be 
good  ! — won't  be  good  ! "  And  it  was  as  easy  for 
the  Doctor  to  say  sweet,  good,  bright  things,  as  for 
a  child  to  pick  up  shells  upon  a  sea-beach  ;  his  mind 
and  heart  were  full  of  them. 

To  any  one  familiar  with  both  men  he  suggests 
immediately  a  resemblance  to  Hartley  Coleridge. 
Exceedingly  alike  in  their  personal  appearance,  the 
likeness  was  yet  more  striking  in  mind  ;  their  foreheads 
so  similar,  and  both  covered,  in  just  the  same  way, 
with  the  black  hair,  grizzling  into  grey  ;  their  half- 
buried,  half-lazy,  shambling,  shuffling,  down-looking 
walk  ;  the  slovenly  appearance  of  their  dress;  their 
half-wild,  yet  wholly  gentle  manner,  when  addressed. 
Then  their  sins  were  very  much  alike,  alas  !  as  were 
also  their  virtues  ;  both  led  a  lazy  life,  and  both  had 
offers  from  Frazer,  and  other  eminent  publishers,  by 
which  they  might  have  obtained  a  competence  in  a 


212      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

year  or  two.  Andrews  enjoyed  the  writing  of  loose 
fragments,  like  Coleridge's  "  Marginalia,"  in  any  sort 
of  books,  and  Coleridge  might  have  written  the 
glorious  drama  of  Andrews,  called  Sampson.  Both 
of  them  loved  the  fine  arts  in  their  own  way  ;  both 
were  fountains  of  awful  tenderness  ;  both  entranced 
all  companies  they  entered  ;  both  would  stay  to  kiss 
a  child  in  the  street,  or  take  it  from  its  mother's 
arms,  and  carry  it  some  distance,  from  pure  love  to 
it  ;  and  both  died  at  the  same  age,  and  neither 
left  behind  any  adequate  recollection  of  genius  or 
power.  Andrews  has  gone  to  forgetfulness,  and 
Hartley  Coleridge  is  fast  hastening  on  his  way 
thither. 

Another  name  with  which  we  often  associate  that 
of  Andrews  was  Hamilton,  of  Leeds  ;  but  here  we 
give  the  palm  to  our  friend  of  London.  He  was 
more  truly  free,  although  the  disciple  of  so  much 
sterner  a  creed,  or  rather  the  same  creed,  held  in  so 
much  sterner  relations.  Like  Hamilton,  he  has  been 
accused  of  a  barbarous  dissonance.  Like  Hamilton, 
he  could  not  curb  in  the  pinions  of  his  luxuriant 
fancy.  Like  Hamilton,  his  soul  was  larger  than  any 
sect ;  but  he  did  not,  like  Hamilton,  perpetually 
attempt  to  trim  down  his  soul  to  the  dominions  of 
his  sect.  Like  Hamilton,  he  bound  up  his  beauties 
within  small  sententious  circles.  Thus,  in  a  funeral 
oration  for  a  member  of  his  Church,  he  closed  by 
saying,  "  What  can  I  say  to  describe  to  you  a 
passage  to  heaven  so  beautiful  and  gentle  as  this  ? 
What  shall  I '  say  but  that  the  spirit  passed  from 
the  body  as  music  flits  from  the  string  ?  " 

And  sometimes  those  sentences  were  laden  with 


DR.   EDWARD  ANDREWS.  213 

gold,  and  oppressive  in  their  sublimity.  In  a  sermon 
from  the  text,  "  The  King's  daughter  is  all-glorious 
within,"  he  described  a  recent  visit  to  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  strikingly  told  how  his  eye  had  been  fasci- 
nated by  an  illustrious  personage,  who  had  borne 
up  the  heaving  continent  upon  his  shoulders.  "  He 
looked  again,"  said  he,  "  and  the  silvery  grey  of  his 
hair  was  flecked  with  the  blood- dust  of  the  battle  shower 
— he  was  not  all-glorious  within."  And  how  striking 
sometimes  was  his  accompanying  action  !  Once, 
we  remember,  the  close  of  a  funeral  sermon,  after 
a  series  of  remarks  of  uncommon  force  and  brilliancy, 
was  electrical.  The  finger  was  turned  to  the  vacant 
seat  in  the  pew,  and  he  uttered  the  word  '^Absent !  " 
A  second  or  two  only  elapsed,  and  the  finger  was 
pointed  upwards,  and  the  word  "  Present  I "  thrilled 
like  a  hymn  of  consolation  through  the  chapel. 
And  the  glory  of  all  these  things  was  only  the  more 
perceptible  because  apparently  so  unpremeditated. 
All  things  said  and  done  were  said  and  done  off- 
hand, and  in  a  tone  that  might  surely  appear  gruff 
but  for  the  music  of  sensibility,  which  turned  its 
otherwise  harsh  cadences  to  the  Divinest  harmony — - 
so  bluntly  he  shook  out  upon  his  auditors  words  and 
allusions  which  each  was  a  poem.  The  mention  of 
some  topics  seemed  instantly  to  transport  him.  He 
could  describe  with  enrapturing  fervour  the  progress 
of  a  spirit,  through  future  ages,  in  knowledge  and 
wisdom  ;  he  could  describe  a  cherub  winged  upon 
his  mission  through  the  infinite  spheres.  The  most 
entrancing  figures  of  earthly  association  appeared  to 
crowd  upon  him  ;  he  felt  the  difficulty  of  selection. 
No  man  ever  revealed   more   plainly  than   he  how 


214      I'HE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

much  more  he  felt  and  saw  than  he  was  able  to 
utter ;  his  eye  revealed  it.  The  figure  and  the 
phrase  were  beautiful,  but  from  that  rough  and  care- 
less tongue,  yet  quivering  with  sensibility,  they 
became  overpowering  and  sublime. 

The  sermons  of  Dr.  Andrews  are  published,  but 
out  of  print,  and  now,  doubtless,  quite  unknown. 
We  shall  scarcely  apologise  for  presenting  to  our 
readers  several  extracts  from  the  volume  ;  but  they 
give  no  idea  of  the  hurrying  brilliancy  which  glanced 
perpetually  over  these  compositions  in  the  course 
of  their  enunciation.  Then,  again,  these  sermons 
were  wonderfully  illuminated  by  their  delivery  ;  not 
that  the  Doctor  was  an  orator.  He  spoke  wholly 
without  art  ;  he  never  sought  to  inflame,  nor  to 
enrapture  :  in  speaking,  in  fact,  he  sought  to  do 
nothing,  "but  just  talked  on  ;  and  while  talking,  it 
seemed  to  us  as  if  words  and  ideas  happened  to 
fall  in  that  strange  beauty  of  combination,  almost 
without  volition  on  the  part  of  the  preacher.  He 
was  fond  of  pictorial  words,  but  in  the  spoken  style 
of  his  discourse,  the  image  was  frequently  far  more 
continuous  and  prolonged.  The  written  sermon  has 
sometimes  the  appearance  of  additional  finery,  which, 
of  course,  deducts  from  real  worth.  Without  any 
separate  introduction,  we  will  take,  at  random,  a 
few  of  the  illustrations  of  the  Doctor's  thought  and 
eloquence : — 

"charging  god  foolishly. 

"  Let  us  beware  of  charging  God  foolishly.  The  insect 
that  flutters  on  the  surface  of  a  stupendous  pile  is  ill- 
qualified  to  survey  its  proportions,  and  to  offer  criticisms 
upon  the  wisdom  of  the  architect." 


DR.   EDWARD  ANDREWS.  215 


"we  are  not  saved. 

"  Awful — the  idea  of  a  world  ceasing !  Even  when  a 
moth  expires  on  the  microscope  of  the  naturalist,  the  mind 
becomes  pathetically  affected  :  a  living  being  has  made  its 
exit  from  our  world — its  little  heart  has  ceased  to  beat — its 
wings  will  no  longer  shine  in  the  sun  !  But  how  is  this 
thought  aggrandised  when  we  rise  to  a  city  deserted,  and 
sit  with  Marius  on  the  ruins  of  Carthage,  or  with  Jeremiah 
on  the  wasted  plains  of  Judea,  when  the  elders  have  ceased 
from  the  gate,  and  the  young  men  and  the  virgins  from 
their  music.  But,  oh  !  think  of  a  world  perishing  ! — the 
music  of  the  spheres — the  moon's  voluptuous  lamp — the 
sun's  golden  flambeaux — all  the  decorations  of  heaven  rent, 
and  the  mighty  business  of  the  world  at  an  end  !  Then, 
how  dreadful  to  have  to  say — 'The  harvest  is  past,  the 
summer  is  ended,  and  we  are  not  saved;'  suns  have  risen 
and  set ;  prophets  have  harangued ;  miracles  have  blazed ; 
the   Saviour  has  died  !    the   Holy   Spirit  has  descended ; 

conscience  has  thundered  ;  the  world  is  burnt  up  ; and 

— we  are  not  saved  1 " 

"  WHAT   A    HALLELUJAH  ! 

"  And  what  a  hallelujah  will  that  be  ! — what  a  meeting 
on  the  banks  of  the  river,  when  our  bliss  is  secure  !  How 
delightful  our  first  walk  in  the  garden,  after  the  day  of 
judgment  is  over,  and  we  are  safely  received  into  the 
paradise  of  light !  What  recollections  !  what  anticipations  ! 
— glittering  angels  and  lofty  cherubim  gUding  by  upon 
fanning  wings,  making  heaven's  odours  more  delightful, 
and  flinging  everlasting  fragrance  through  all  the  air — 
flowers,  bright  as  stars,  and  tremulous  as  a  tear — trees, 
whose  shadow  is  illumined  with  golden  fruit — fresh  swelling 
cadences  from  distant  harps, — and  sudden  bursts  of  chorus 
from  different  companies,  lost  in  the  whirlpool  of  praise. 


2i6      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Oh,  my  soul !  sit  down  and  ponder  these  things,  and  then 
tell  the  dull  earth  it  is  unworthy  of  thy  love !  Let  Dagon 
already  feel  the  shaking,  and  fall — immense  and  heavy — 
from  his  pedestal,  nevermore  to  be  reared !  Now  let  the 
strain  begin,  and  night,  dark  night,  cover  all  the  gemmed 
vanities  that  rise  between  us  and  the  mount  of  God ! 
Strike  up,  seraphs !  our  hearts  beat  in  unison,  and  Thy 
Sacred  Name,  oh  Jesus,  be  my  song !  " 

The  cold  in  temperament — the  unideal — cannot 
tolerate  this  profuse  outpouring  of  language  and 
fancy.  The  preacher  was  essentially  a  poet,  and  he 
could  only  express  himself  as  a  poet.  Look  at  the 
following  : — 

"the   testimony   of   JESUS    IS   THE   SPIRIT   OF   PROPHECY. 

"The  Old  Testament  saints  saw  His  glory  in  the  beaming 
altar — in  the  glittering  targets  that  were  hung  round  the 
temple — in  the  drop  of  Hght  that  marked  the  priest's  up- 
ward eye,  when  he  devotionally  looked  to  heaven  and 
blessed  the  people — in  the  many-sounding  silver  cornets 
which,  with  one  accord,  were  uplifted  in  the  sunbeam,  and 
inflated  by  pious  breath.  It  was  the  trumpet-march  of  the 
Redeemer !  Already — already  they  beheld  the  blood- 
stained Conqueror  from  Edom,  with  dyed  garments  from 
Bozrah.  Embodied  in  the  field  of  distant  vision  they  beheld 
the  Man  of  sorrows — the  Man  of  war.  His  adored  name 
was  written  on  their  hearts,  and  they  rehearsed  it  from  the 
shields  of  their  immortality." 

Unquestionably  much  of  this  appears  to  be  in 
very  redundant,  in  very  bad  taste  ;  and  the  mind 
of  Dr.  Andrews  was  truly  an  undisciplined  mind  ; 
it  was  crowded  with  every  sort  of  learning  ;  and  his 
speech  in  public  and  in  private  abounded  with  every 


DR.  EDWARD  ANDREWS.    .  217 

sort  of  allusion.  Peace  to  his  memory  !  Looked 
at  now,  at  some  distance  of  time,  it  appears  to  us 
the  most  extraordinary  preaching  of  this  sort  we 
ever  heard.  The  thought  was  not  profound,  nor, 
perhaps,  very  original  ;  but  the  analogies  were  so 
numerous  and  so  perfect,  and  the  information  was  so 
various  and  extensive  ;  the  eloquence  was  not  of  a 
continued  and  artificial  character,  but  it  was  so  sharp 
and  sententious,  yet  so  dazzlingly  pictorial;  and  it  was 
the  word  of  so  hearty  a  man — so  free — so  unaffected, 
in  the  pulpit  ministration  !  That  kindly,  genial, 
sunshiny  face  smiles  on  us  still  ;  and  those  words, 
withal  so  humoursome,  too  ! — Dear  spirit — kind 
teacher — hail  ! — and  farewell ! 

And  even  yet  we  cannot  let  him  go  ;  the  diffi- 
culty in  parting  from  an  old  friend  is  increased  by 
the  knowledge  that  few  remember  him  beside  our- 
selves ;  and  we  are  quite  aware  that  many  will 
question  our  own  taste  as  we  recall  splendours 
which,  perhaps,  in  their  perusal  may  seem  to  many 
readers  garish,  possibly  meretricious.  To  us  he  seems, 
we  suppose,  very  much  such  a  person  as  Hugh 
Miller's  Stewart  of  Cromarty. 

Thus  the  name  of  Dr.  Andrews  is  one  which  we 
do  not  like  to  allow  to  pass  from  the  memory  of 
others  ;  there  is  no  fear  of  its  passing  from  our  own. 
He  was  our  boyhood's  pulpit  idol.  Collyer  was  more 
mellifluous,  James  Parsons  more  electrical,  Hyatt 
was  loud  and  vehement,  Melvill  rolling,  rhetorical, 
grand  ;  but  Andrews  was  beyond  all  preachers 
we  knew  then,  beyond  all  we  have  known  since — 
the  real  poet  of  the  pulpit.  It  is  possible  that  some 
will  say,  as  they  read  his  sermons, — if  they  should 


2i8      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

ever  succeed    in   getting   a  copy  to  read, — that   he 
ought  rather  to  serve  as  an  illustration   of  how  not 
to  preach — his  style  was  so  broken,  so  abrupt ;  he 
threw  things  about  so  entirely  at  random  ;  his  mind 
was  so  desultory,  and  so  dreamy.      He  was  away  to 
the  uttermost  and  outermost  verge  of  the  universe 
in  a  second,  by  the  merest  glance  of  a  simple  sugges- 
tion.      A  professor  of  rhetoric  would  have  said  he 
could  not  make  a  sermon  ;  a  professor  of  logic  would 
have  said  he  could  not  reason.     Well,  he  seemed   to 
know  everything  ;  and  he  poured  into  his  rich  dis- 
courses allusions   from   every   variety  of  subject  and 
every  variety  of  book.      He  was  a  child   of  genius. 
Music  of  many  instruments,  "  from  a  Jew's-harp  to  an 
organ,"  he    was  said    to  have   at  his   fingers'   ends. 
Something  of  many  languages  he  was  supposed   to 
know.      In  Greek  he   was  a  giant,   not  like  Porson 
nor  Parr  ;  yet  his  knowledge,  we  believe,  even  they 
would  have  respected.     Then,  not  only  Hebrew,  but 
more  out-of-the-way  and  tributary  stores  of  language 
he  had    at  command.      He   was   also  something  of 
a    painter.       He    was  a  large-hearted,  loving    child, 
perhaps,  too,  with  something  of  the  vanity  and   the 
petulance    of  a   child.      We    were    wondrously  well 
pleased  to  visit  his  church  ;   for,  although  a  Congre- 
gational minister  in  a  day  when   Congregationalism 
was  very  plain  and  unadorned,  his   church,  which  is 
now  no  doubt  ordinary  enough,  was  rich  and  beauti- 
ful.     He  would  employ  the  service  of  the  Church  of 
England  ;   would   have  an   organ   and   stained  glass, 
had  it  been   possible   the   fluted   column,   as   well   as 
the  pealing  anthem.      And   so  it  was  that  we  were 
often  drawn  to  Beresford  Chapel,  Walworth,  to  listen 


DR.   EDWARD  ANDREWS.  219 

to  a  man  whose  church  was  always  crowded,  even 
when  that  corner  of  London  contained  such  a  cluster 
of  preachers  as  England  could  scarcely  produce  now 
— Dr.  Collyer,  Henry  Melvill,  Thomas  Dale,  William 
Irons,  John  Burnet,  and  Edward  Andrews  —  all 
within  a  mile  of  each  other. 

Andrews  was  one  of  those  men  who  did  little 
else  beside  preach,  or  prepare  to  preach  ;  it  was  the 
habit  of  that  time.  Through  the  week,  thought  and 
feeling  went  wandering  up  and  down  in  search  of 
expression  ;  and  it  was  a  fine  time  when  those  old 
preachers  lived,  and  lived  to  study,  to  feel,  to  think, 
and  to  find  the  fitting  mould  of  expression  into 
which  to  pour  the  red-hot  metal  of  feeling  and  of 
thought.  In  the  case  of  Dr.  Andrews,  he  certainly 
lived  for  this  purpose — much-tried,  much-suffering, 
painfully-experienced  man.  Heart  and  mind  went 
wandering  about  during  the  week  for  those  settings 
of  jewelled  expression  which  he  drew  forth  with 
every  Sabbath.  Who  does  not  know  it  ^  there  are 
words  which  make  thoughts  and  emotions  shine, 
like  opals  or  rubies,  like  any  precious  stone.  Cer- 
tain words  have  an  amazing  power  of  delighting 
from  the  way  in  which  they  occur. 

No  one  hearing  Andrews,  we  suppose,  would  have 
charged  him  altogether  with  bad  taste,  even  when 
he  .said  the  quaintest,  queerest  things  ;  but  perhaps 
most  persons  reading  his  sermons  now  would  speak 
of  them  as  monuments  of  bad  taste,  in  just  the  same 
way,  and  for  just  the  same  reason,  as  the  charge  has 
been  preferred  against  the  "  Theron  and  Aspasia,"  the 
"  Contemplations  and  Meditations"  of  James  Hervey, 
Pollock's  "Course  of  Time,"  and,  perhaps,  Young's 


220      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

"  Night  Thoughts."  They  are  so  highly  coloured — 
colour  predominates  ;  sometimes  it  even  seems,  no 
doubt,  to  glare.  We  believe,  it  should  be  remem- 
bered, that  an  amount  of  colour  may  be  permitted  in 
speech  which  becomes  dazzling  and  intolerable  to 
the  eye  when  read.  It  was  the  case  with  Chalmers, 
with  Melvill  ;  in  many  very  great  instances  the 
revising  and  fastidious  eye  of  the  critic  has  had  to 
reject  what  seemed  most  delightful  as  it  fell  from 
the  lip  of  the  speaker.  If  the  speaker  hold  up  a 
succession  of  brilliant  kaleidoscopic  words,  and  speak 
like  an  Ephrem  Syrus,  it  is  scarcely  possible  for  the 
mind  to  ask,  "  What  is  he  giving  us  t  What  is  the 
good  of  it  all  ? "  As  well  ask,  in  the  presence  of  the 
rosy  glow  of  the  morning  spread  upon  the  moun- 
tains, "  What  is  the  good  of  it  all  } "  There  is  a 
pleasing  emotion,  although  no  defined  shape.  The 
mystical  heat  and  reality  of  his  own  nature  carries 
the  hearer  along  into  the  same  path  of  vision  and 
emotion.  It  is  wonderful  how,  for  a  time,  a  speaker 
compels  an  audience  to  feel  things  from  his  point, 
or  standard  of  emotion.  But  we  live  in  the  day  of 
very  correct  taste,  and  "  the  elegant  Jeremiahs,"  the 
prophets  of  "  light  and  sweetness,"  would  themselves, 
we  must  confess  it,  be  plunged  into  a  passion,  or 
excited  to  a  nervous  tremulousness  at  such  things  as 
fell  readily  in  every  sermon  from  the  lips  of  Andrews. 
It  must  be  admitted,  he  was  no  pre-Raffaelite,  and 
this  is  the  pre-Raffaelite  age  in  the  pulpit  as  well 
as  on  the  canvas.  Such  pre-RaffaeHtism  takes  pride 
very  much  in  renouncing  charming  and  attractive 
adjectives  ;  and  yet  an  adjective,  even  a  succession 
of  artistic  adjectives,  will  do  the  work  of  a  picture — 


DR.  EDWARD  ANDREWS.  221 

nay,  an  adjective  is  a  stroke  of  colour — but  only  in 
the  hand,  and  from  the  pencil  of  the  artist.  Far  be 
it  from  us  to  imply  that  the  ignorant  lavishmcnt  of 
fine  words  upon  any  subject  either  decorates  and 
adorns  or  adds  anything  to  the  weight  of  impression 
in  the  hearer's  mind  ;  and  yet  something  has  to  be 
said  ;  the  mere  cold,  hard  outline  of  a  thought  is 
not  sufficient  for  the  ordinary  and  average  mind. 
An  accomplished  master  of  music,  the  other  day, 
told  us  that  he  had  not  so  much  sympathy  with 
Beethoven  in  his  deafness  as  he  had  heard  many 
express,  because  to  himself  to  read  the  mere  score 
of  some  grand  work  of  a  musical  artist  was  intense 
enjoyment,  although  unaccompanied  by  any  vocal 
or  instrumental  melody.  What  then,  he  said,  must 
have  been  the  pleasure  of  Beethoven  }  Far  greater, 
probably,  than  if  the  notes  and  bars  had  been  trans- 
lated into  sound.  Yes ;  but  very  vain  would  be  the 
expectation  of  much  enjoyment  in  the  multitude 
without  such  translation  ;  and  great  must  be  the 
endowment  of  music  in  the  soul  thus  to  apprehend 
in  itself  the  life  of  harmony  and  melody,  its  soprano 
and  bass,  its  contralto  or  tenor,  without  a  note  upon 
the  ear.  Now,  when  men  speak  in  hard  thought, — • 
and  poets  do  this  sometimes, — they  expect  their 
readers  or  hearers  to  be  as  wise  as  themselves,  our 
great  master,  Robert  Browning,  for  instance.  Ad- 
jectives translate,  when  wisely  used,  scenes  and 
impressions  to  the  popular  mind.  No  one  under- 
stands this  better  than  Tennyson  ;  he  is  a  master 
of  adjective  ;  and  this  is  one  great  element  in  his 
popularity,  as  perhaps  it  is  a  considerable  element 
in  every  great  poet's  popularity. 


222      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Dr.  Andrews  seemed  almost  to  disdain  to  speak 
except    in   a   picture.     Take   two  or   three 

ANDREWSANA. 

"  Man  alone  Conscious  of  God. — Of  all  the  lower  universe, 
man  only  can  desire  the  Deity.  The  eagle  soars  towards  the 
sun,  without  mentally  drinking  its  light;  the  sturdy  ox 
triumphantly  tramples  the  meadow,  without  knowing  Him 
who  covers  it  with  green ;  the  majestic  river  flows  on, 
ignorant  of  its  source  and  of  the  blessings  which  teem  from 
its  waters  ;  and  even  the  starry  train  of  midnight,  as  they 
roll  along  nearer  the  throne,  can  only  utter  in  the  ear  of 
Reason  and  Rehgion  their  harmonious  chime,  themselves 
utterly  unconscious  as  the  melancholy  bell  in  some  solitary 
tower." 

'■'^  Hatred  and  Enmity  to  Christ. — Bat  all  attempts  to 
destroy  His  greatness  shall,  in  the  end,  only  manifest  more 
fully  His  eternal  excellency,  as  clouds  and  vapours,  which 
threaten  to  obscure  the  horizontal  sun,  are  soon  converted 
into  fleeces  of  gold  and  silver,  or  are  made,  when  stretched 
into  curtain-work  of  fire  and  tresses  of  flame,  to  embody  the 
very  radiance  they  would  conceal,  and  to  extend  a  royal 
drapery  around  the  rising  king  of  day." 

"  Time  and  Rivers. — And  the  very  flight  of  time  should 
excite  our  pious  attention  even  to  temporal  duties.  Time 
gradually  slides  away  in  small  quantities,  like  the  smooth 
and  liquid  lapse  of  rivers ;  we  are  amused  by  flowers  on  the 
brink,  or  by  clouds  and  trees  reflected  on  the  surface,  while 
the  irrevocable  flood  rolls  on." 

"  God  Inexplicable. — He  has  dashed  the  insolence  of  those 
who  would  anatomise  Him,  by  a  flood  of  wonders  in  the 
material  world,  each  of  them,  taken  separately,  enough  to 
confound  the  wisdom  of  the  wisest — ^the  curiously  feathered 
moth,  the  buoyant  cloud,  the  fiery  gem,  and  the  flashing 
meteor,  the  wilderness  in   its  magnificence,  and  the  ocean 


DR.   EDWARD  ANDREWS.  223 

in  its  expanse,  all  give  back  the  honours  of  the  invisible 
God,  and  every  particular  of  their  formation  utters  a  por- 
tentous sarcasm  on  the  man  who  w^ould  stagger  into  the 
palace  of  Deity,  and  command  the  Judge  of  quick  and  dead 
to  explain  His  most  hidden  properties  to  sceptics  who  but 
half  believe  His  being." 

"  Metnory  and  Immortality. — What  an  abyss  to  look  back 
upon  is  the  retrospect  of  our  boyish  years  !  We  remember 
the  blue  skies,  and  the  gardens,  and  the  rose-walks,  and  the 
river,  and  the  childish  ramble  amidst  the  hawthorn  and 
cowslips,  and  the  red  dragon-fly  that  skimmed  the  stream, 
and  the  charms  of  the  wood  and  copse,  the  sudden  pheasant 
gleaming  in  the  sun,  and  the  blackbird  of  mellifluous  note ; 
yes,  and  at  winter,  too,  the  pert  little  robin  looking  sidelong 
and  sprightly  upon  the  snow  into  the  lattice.  They  are  all 
gone  !  Where  are  the  years  of  our  infancy  ;  and  what  have 
we  learned  since  ?  Are  we  better  acquainted  with  heaven 
and  with  ourselves  ?  Are  we  pressing  forward  to  win  Christ 
and  to  be  found  in  Him  ?  Then  we  shall  overtake  time, 
our  lost  years  will  be  replaced,  and  before  the  pendulum 
has  ceased  to  vibrate,  we  shall  be  safe  beyond  the  flight  of 
years." 

"  The  Rationalism  of  Strauss. — We  have  lived  to  see  the 
fuller  organisation  of  a  system  which  tells  us  that  He " 
(Christ)  "  is  only  a  spectre — a  gliding  image  along  the 
arcades  of  the  temple,  less  real  than  the  phantoms  of  a 
winter's  eve,  and  to  be  classed  only  with  the  fables  of  the 
village  beldame,  who  terrifies  her  youthful  audience  with 
scenes  from  the  graveyard,  when  the  stroke  of  midnight 
mourns  over  the  dead,  or  strange  sights  announce  to  distant 
friends  the  last  change  of  departed  men.  Christ  now  becomes 
the  mere  coruscation  of  fancy,  and  His  personal  existence 
a  something  which,  in  pity  to  human  weakness,  had  better 
be  forgotten." 

But  we  must  cease  from   this  citation   of  images. 


224      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

abundantly  strewn,  however,  throughout  these 
sermons,  and  many  of  them  showing  a  habit  of 
sublime  fancy  and  expression.  It  seemed  with  Dr. 
Andrews  that,  whatever  had  to  be  expressed,  some 
corresponding  picture  rose  to  the  mind.  Thus,  "  He 
that  dwelleth  in  the  secret  place  of  the  Most  High 
shall  abide  under  the  shadow  of  the  Almighty  "  calls 
up  these  images  : — 

"Some  have  said  that  a  shelter  becomes  doubly  calm 
and  pleasing  when  surrounding  tempests  beat  its  sides 
harmless ;  that  the  domestic  hearth  is  more  cheerful  when 
flakes  of  snow  gather  on  the  windows,  and  when  little 
children,  looking  out  into  the  darkling  storm,  return  from 
the  lattice  with  additional  pleasure  to  a  parent's  embrace, 
while  cheerful  embers  gild  by  reflected  fires  their  still  more 
cheerful  faces,  and  parental  piety  descants  on  the  goodness 
of  God  and  the  claims  of  the  poor.  All  such  ideas  find 
their  substantiation  in  the  highest  sense  in  his  experience 
who,  amidst  the  wildest  commotions  of  earth,  takes  refuge 
in  a  promising  covenant-keeping  God,  like  the  alarmed 
bird,  whose  grasp  of  the  bending  bough  becomes  only  the 
stronger  for  the  very  winds  by  which  the  tree  is  shaken." 

Concerning  the  style  of  Dr.  Andrews,  it  is,  we 
believe,  very  generally  denounced  by  severer  critics  ; 
it  is  also  pretty  popularly  admired,  and  by  some 
preachers  and  speakers  very  generally  followed.  Dr. 
Punshon  laboured  his  periods  much  more  arduously, 
but  seldom  expressed  himself  in  those  colours  of 
poetry  which  we  have  admitted  may  be  regarded  as 
a  grave  defect  in  these  sermons. 

It  is  certain  that  the  whole  spirit  of  an  age 
changes.      How   few   now    feel    pleasure   in    reading 


DR.  EDWARD  ANDREWS.  225 

either  Thomson's  "  Seasons,"  or  Young's  "  Night 
Thoughts  "  !  It  is  in  an  age  when  such  poetry  is 
popular  that  the  decorative  and  adorned  style  is 
followed  in  the  pulpit.  The  great  defect,  however, 
of  Dr.  Andrews  was,  that  his  mind  seemed  ever 
unsustained  through  a  subject.  All  his  words  flashed 
about  like  coruscations ;  his  discourses  on  texts  were 
broken  into  fragments  ;  fancy  fairly  got  the  better 
of  him.  He  even  had  a  very  singular  way  of  divid- 
ing his  texts,  almost  invariably  expressing  the 
division  in  a  single  word.  Thus,  from  the  text, 
'^ An  old  disciple"  (Acts  xxi.  16),  we  have,  in  the 
delineation  of  the  character — i.  Wonder. — It  is 
wondrous  that  any  should  live  to  extreme  age,  when 
we  consider  the  variety  of  movements  upon  which 
our  life  depends !  what  passions,  etc.,  innumerable 
calamities,  etc.,  grim  diseases,  etc. ;  what  battles,  if 
not  in  the  field,  with  man's  unkindness,  etc.  If  the 
old  disciple  appear  stern,  it  is  perhaps  because  the 
world  has  made  him  so.  O  ye  young  and  mistrust- 
less,  deal  gently  with  the  acrimonies  of  the  aged. 
Amazing  sight !  a  human  being,  fearfully  and 
wonderfully  made,  and  whose  life  has  extended 
through  nearly  a  century.  2.  Distinction. — The 
term,  "  an  old  disciple,"  reminds  us  of  the  compara- 
tive singularity  of  advanced  age.  Impious  Absalom 
and  pious  Josiah  alike  die  young.  Death  loves  to 
decorate  his  scythe  with  the  earliest  garlands,  and  to 
employ  the  old  man  in  building  the  tombs  of  his 
children.  What  an  alarming  ascendency  of  death 
over  infants,  and  generally  over  the  young !  He 
who  has  lived  to  threescore  years  and  ten  has  out- 
lived   his   friends,    and    stands   like    a   tree    on    the 

IS 


226      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

mountain,  alone,  with  its  withered  leaves  dropping 
all  around  it,  etc.  3.  Perseverance. — To  have  be- 
come an  "  old  disciple,"  supposes  the  man  to  have 
steadily  persevered,  while  many  professed  followers 
of  Christ  went  back  and  walked  no  more  with  Him  ; 
he  is  like  the  oldest  inhabitant  of  the  village,  who 
has  seen  all  the  other  houses  change  their  tenants. 
The  decided  preference  for  the  gospel  in  very  aged 
saints  confirms  others,  etc.  Error  can  never  be 
venerable  merely  because  it  is  old ;  but  a  statue  that 
remains  unbroken  amidst  many  ruins  acquires  new 
majesty  from  the  shading  of  time,  as  from  the  mosses 
which  have  grown  at  its  pedestal,  and  from  the 
scars  war  and  tempest  have  made  upon  its  base- — its 
very  existence  is  its  own  inscription,  among  wrecks 
which  nothing  but  super-excellence  could  outlive.  4. 
Willingness. — ^-Disciple  means  a  learner  ;  the  saints 
are  ever  learning,  etc.  5-  Advantage. — Some  cir- 
cumstances in  old  age  render  it  highly  favourable  to 
devotion  and  to  general  spirituality  of  mind.  The 
fervour  of  the  passions  has  much  subsided  ;  an  old 
man  takes  a  calmer  view  of  human  life  than  others 
do:  he  is  a  library  of  experience.  All  nature  be- 
comes dull,  and  it  is  well  if  then  the  world  be  only 
a  shaded  arch  through  which  the  weary  traveller 
looks  into  a  brighter  sky.  The  "old  disciple"  seeks 
a  country  traversing  a  world  of  change.  6.  Necessity. 
— The  natural  desolation  of  such  an  age,  abandoned 
by  nature  and  slipping  off  the  world's  surface  ;  con- 
solations of  religion  especially  needed  then.  The 
subject  naturally  closed  with  remarks — i.  To  tlie 
Careless  Old.  What !  an  old  man  careless  for 
eternity !     In  proportion  as  life  recedes,  the  human 


DR.  EDWARD  ANDREWS.  227 


being  ought  to  be  thoughtful.  2.  To  the  Sceptical. 
3.  To  the  Gay.  Multitude  of  years  should  teach 
wisdom  ;  an  animated  skeleton  dressed  up  for  the 
saloon  of  pleasure  and  courting  the  smiles  of  the 
youthful  fair — how  forbidding  !  4.  To  the  Covetous. 
What  an  absurdity  that  the  decay  of  faculties  should 
be  the  signal  for  new  labours,  that  the  incapacity 
for  enjoyment  should  heighten  our  zeal  to  furnish 
its  materials !  ^.  To  the  Unstable.  6.  To  the 
Pharisaical.      7.    To  the  Spiritual. 

The  sermons  of  Dr.  Andrews  present  a  very  fair 
average,  but  in  the  way  we  have  indicated,  too 
broken,  too  unsustained  for  modern  taste,  or  for  the 
consecutive  thinker,  in  this,  however,  by  no  means 
behind  the  greater  number  of  his  contemporaries  in 
the  pulpit.  The  more  serious  objection  to  his  style 
is,  that  it  seems  to  labour  too  much  with  the  deter- 
mination to  say  what  may  be  called  fine  or  showy 
things  ;  yet  they  were  not  unnatural  things,  and  we 
have  one  or  two  living  men,  exceedingly  popular  in 
our  pulpit,  who  sin  in  this  way  far  more  than  did 
Dr.  Andrews,  but  who  never,  or  seldom,  redeem 
their  style  by  such  splendid  images.  In  closing  our 
sketch,  our  readers  will  perhaps  expect  one  or  two 
other  illustrations, 

"resurrection  unto  life. 

'*  Resurrection  I  Wonderful  scene  !  Then  the  green  field 
will  be  cloven ;  every  turf  will  heave ;  vaults,  cemeteries, 
mausoleums,  and  cathedrals  will  give  out  their  dead.  And 
of  the  saints,  what  glorious  bodies  shall  arise  !  like  birds  of 
splendid  plumage,  emerging  from  the  grove,  or  rockets  ot 
flame  shot  up  from  burning  cities,  or  brilliant  suns  in  the 


228      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

fourth  day  of  creation  starting  out  from  dark  nature's  chaotic 
wilderness  !  Now  shall  the  body  be  rejoined  to  the  happy 
spirit  and  share  her  immortality ;  now  appear  the  glittering 
crown,  the  golden  throne,  the  eloquent  harp,  awaiting  only 
the  close  of  nature's  commotion,  and  ready,  when  the  last 
thunder  dies,  to  pour  from  immortal  strings  the  only 
harmonies  that  could  worthily  mingle  with  the  soul's  ecstacy. 
And  what  a  heaven  shall  open  to  the  soul,  either  in  life's 
exit  now,  or  its  consummation  then  !  Shall  we  speak  of  it 
as  a  city,  a  labyrinth  of  architecture,  vanishing  in  columns 
and  arches  into  the  blue  distance  ?  or  as  a  boundless  waste 
of  forests,  lakes,  and  gardens?  or,  rather,  as  a  bright  horizon, 
which  dissolves  its  entire  compass  into  light,  where  the  soul 
is  lost  in  mingling  glories — every  portion  of  the  scene  an 
item  of  felicity— the  whole  an  orb  of  completed  adoration? 
'  I  saw  no  temple  therein,  for  the  Lord  God  Almighty  and 
the  Lamb  are  the  temple  of  it,  for  the  glory  of  God  did 
hghten  it,  and  the  Lamb  is  the  Light  thereof  What 
beams!  'And  the  redeemed  shall  walk  in  itl'  We  might 
almost  exclaim.  Tell  us,  ye  departed  spirits  of  the  sainted 
dead  !  tell  us  what  heaven  is !  Tell  us,  Abel,  thou  first  of 
mortals,  escaping  from  thy  brother's  murderous  arm — tell 
us  with  what  joys  thou  didst  languish  into  life ;  and  how, 
smoothly  pillowed  on  the  breast  of  angels,  or  wrapped  in 
their  glow  ing  wings,  thy  soul  did  enter,  the  first  visitor  from 
earth,  and  thou  didst  press  with  hallowed  knees,  the  first 
redeemed,  the  flowery  coasts !  Or  shall  Elijah  tell  us, 
descending  in  his  chariot  of  flame,  what  was  the  glory  of 
that  heaven  whose  brightness,  when  he  arrived,  extmguished 
the  fiery  beamings  of  his  tempestuous  coursers?  Or  shall 
he  of  Tarsus  tell  us,  who  was  snatched  into  the  third  heaven  ? 
Or  shall  Moses,  the  man  of  God,  reveal  what  he  has  since 
seen,  not  in  the  rock's  cleft,  nor  even  on  Sinai's  burning 
summit  ?  Oh  !  they  cannot  tell ;  they  have  heard,  but  the 
words  were  unspeakable ;  they  have  seen,  but  the  vision 
was  unutterable  ;  yet  we  may  gaze,  like  some  early  traveller, 


DR.  EDWARD  ANDREWS.  229 

who,  on  the  mountain's  side,  pauses  to  admire  the  rising 
sun,  till  his  features  and  vestments  borrow  the  crimson  glow; 
so  would  we  look,  till  changed  into  the  same  image  from 
glory  to  glory,  as  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord." 

It  was  hardly  possible  for  a  man  like  Andrews  to 
speak, — far  away  as  his  general  exercises  were  froni 
logic,  or  that  which  bears  the  vaunted  name  of 
philosophy, — without  often,  in  many  a  happy  stroke, 
revealing  his  knowledge  of  the  dimensions  and 
locality  of  great  truths,  even  as  a  lightning  stroke 
often  reveals  an  immense  region  unexpected  before, 
as  when  he  says,  "  The  altar  of  God,  burning  in  the 
midst  of  a  gospel  land,  illustrates  and  renders  more 
splendid  the  whole  scenery  of  the  surrounding 
universe."  But  even  his  philosophy  was  always  com- 
pacted of  poetry,  as  he  portrayed  "  the  universe 
resolved  into  its  first  elements,"  or  saw  the  "  seraphs 
circle  out  with  a  pointing  hand  the  orbits  in  which 
the  worlds  moved."  But,  as  we  have  said,  he  spoke 
in  the  way  of  a  poet,  and  delighted  to  loiter  over  the 
"  bee's  scientific  toil,"  "the  foresight  and  political 
economy  of  the  sagacious  ant,"  to  question  "  Who  shall 
explain  a  drop  of  dew,  or  the  cheerfulness  of  the  little 
grasshopper  who  sips  it  on  the  point  of  the  leaf.?" 
or  to  inquire  "  Who  shall  unbar  the  castle  where  the 
thunders  dwell.''"  to  converse  "with  the  rude  unruffled 
eye  of  the  mountain  eagle,"  the  "  red  and  rapid 
lightnings  glaring  up  the  solitary  glen,  or  fringing 
the  hitherto  unseen  forest."  Speaking  of  the  first 
missionaries  of  the  cross,  he  delighted  to  describe 
them  as  going  forward  with  a  "  standard  which, 
taken  from  Calvary,  unfurled  and  dishevelled  in  the 
hurricane,  and  darting  mysterious  influence  wherever 


230      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

it  came,  proclaimed  the  march  of  some  mighty 
conqueror  whose  character  had  been  mistaken."  He 
delighted  to  speak  of  God  "  in  His  amazing  extension 
visiting  the  heath-flower  and  the  bluebell,  and 
depositing  a  dew-drop  on  the  bosom  of  a  rose,"  to 
visit  the  "  hoary  mountain,  the  solitary  lake,  the 
sombre,  wild,  and  unexplored  shores  whose  echoes 
have  slept  since  the  departure  of  the  deluge."  If  he 
described  Socinianism  or  Pantheism,  he  would  speak 
of  them  as  "  a  spiritual  chemistry  which  dissolves  the 
hardest  substances  into  thin  air,  very  captivating  to 
the  unwary."  But  with  a  piece  of  what  some  would 
perhaps  call  his  more  sustained  extravagance  we  will 
close  our  citations. 

"  THE   DEATH   OF   STEPHEN. 

"  Stephen  was  right :  he  commended  his  spirit  to  Him  who 
is  the  First  and  the  Last  and  the  Living  One  ;  and  in  this 
hope  he  fell  asleep  to  awake  in  a  brighter  day,  and  to  enter 
on  a  more  peaceful  world.  Illustrious  sufferer !  He  was 
the  first  of  the  noble  army  of  martyrs  who  ascended  after 
the  death  of  Jesus  ;  he  hastened  to  join  the  number  of  those 
who  had  suffered  since  the  death  of  righteous  Abel  to  the 
blood  of  Zacharias  the  son  of  Barachias,  whom  they  slew 
between  the  temple  and  the  altar.  He  was  eager  to  fall 
down  before  the  throne  of  Jesus ;  a  shower  of  stones  and  a 
tempest  of  execrations  could  not  affright  away  his  steady 
soul ;  he  was  favoured  with  a  view  of  Christ  at  the  right 
hand  of  power ;  he  overheard  the  accents  of  a  prevailing 
intercession  ;  he  could  not  desist ;  his  dying  countenance 
shone  like  the  face  of  an  angel,  and  he  poured  himself  out 
in  an  act  of  devotion :  '  Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit.  I 
cannot  endure  Thine  absence.  I  long  to  join  the  company 
of  Thy  ransomed  ones.'     Go,  noble  martyr,  enter  into  the 


DR.   EDWARD  ANDREWS.  231 

joy  of  thy  Lord.  The  early  sun  sets  in  blood ;  but  it  shall 
glow  in  a  brighter  hemisphere,  unclouded  and  uneclipsed, 
to  go  no  more  down  for  ever.  Thou  hast  bequeathed  to  us 
a  precious  lesson  ;  thy  last  effort  was  an  act  of  worship  to 
Jesus;  on  the  confines  of  heaven,  and  taught  by  the  unerring 
Spirit,  thou  hast  left  us  an  example,  and  art  now  perpetuating 
the  same  principle,  though  prayer  is  turned  into  praise." 

With  this  quotation  we  will  close  our  sketch  of  an 
almost  forgotten,  but  in  his  day  a  not  unremarkable 
man  ;  his  desultory  mind  prevented  him  from 
achieving  anything  in  authorship  beyond  the  volumes 
of  Sermons  from  which  we  have  quoted,  a  volume  of 
Discourses  on  the  Trinity,  a  few  occasional  Sermons, 
a  little  collection  of  Orations,  very  brief,  spoken  mostly 
at  graves  or  in  occasional  circumstances,  and  a  sacred 
drama,  entitled,  NabotJis  Vineyard^  which  received 
some  warm  commendations  upon  its  appearance.  At 
the  bar  of  good  taste  and  correct  fancy,  the  sermons 
of  Dr.  Andrews  would  certainly  receive  some  severe 
condemnation  ;  but  probably  they  might  be  taken  as 
very  happily  furnishing  to  students  excellent  lessons, 
not  merely  upon  the  abuse  of  the  imagination  in  the 
pulpit,  but  upon  its  use,  for  they  exhibit  not  only 
a  dangerous  and  undisciplined  wildness,  but  a  too 
glaring  colour  in  the  representation  of  sacred  things ; 
they  represent  also  a  power  of  living  imagery,  a 
vivid  appropriation  of  fancy,  although  reminding  us 
too  much  of  the  style  of  Salvator  Rosa,  or  the  yet 
more  questionable  colouring  of  John  Martin. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT. 

FEW  things  in  the  history  of  the  pulpit  seem  to  us 
to  have  a  more  ironical  aspect  than  the  interest 
manifested  by  Charles  the  Second  in  its  spiritual 
welfare  and  efficiency.  His  Majesty  was  pleased  to 
deplore  a  general  declension  in  reference  to  morals 
and  religion,  and,  after  great  searchings  of  heart,  he 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  the  general  depravity 
of  the  times  resulted  from  the  reading  ot  their 
sermons  by  preachers.  He  was,  therefore,  pleased 
to  issue  a  prohibition  of  this  deleterious  practice. 
It  is  said  to  be  on  record  in  the  statute  book  ot 
the  university  of  Cambridge,  and  is  as  follows. 

"  To  the  Vice-Chancellor  and  Gentlemsn : — 
Whereas  his  Majesty  is  informed  that  the  practice  of 
reading  sermons  is  generally  taken  up  by  the 
preachers  before  the  University,  and  therefore  some- 
times continued  before  himself,  his  Majesty  has  com- 
manded me  to  signify  to  you  his  pleasure  that  the 
said  practice,  which  took  its  beginning  from  the  dis- 
orders of  the  late  times,  be  wholly  laid  aside,  and 
that  the  said  preachers  deliver  their  sermons,  both  in 
Latin  and  in  English,  by  memory,  without  •icok,  as 
being  a  way  of  preaching  which  his  Majesty  judges 


THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT.  233 

most  agreeable  to  the  use  of  all  foreign  Churches,  to 
the  customs  of  the  University  heretofore,  and  to  the 
nature  and  intention  of  that  holy  exercise  ;  and  that 
his  Majesty's  commands  in  these  premises  may  be 
duly  regarded  and  observed,  his  further  pleasure  is 
that  the  names  of  all  such  ecclesiastical  persons,  as 
shall  continue  the  present  supine  and  slothful  way 
of  preaching,  be  from  time  to  time  signified  to  me  by 
the  Vice-Chancellor  for  the  time,  on  pain  of  his 
Majesty's  displeasure. 

"(Signed)   MONMOUTH.'* 

When  we  consider  the  kind  of  person  his 
Majesty  was,  this  tender  interest  in  the  efficiency  of 
the  pulpit  must  certainly  seem  remarkable  ;  when 
we  consider  that  he  sold  a  portion  of  his  country  to 
the  King  of  France,  and  that  probably  this  very 
statute  was  drawn  up  with  Nell  Gwynn  or  the 
Duchess  of  Portsmouth  on  his  knee,  he  might  have 
looked  a  little  nearer  home  for  the  causes  of  the 
decay  of  public  morals.  It  is,  however,  remarkable 
to  find  this  son  of  Kish  among  our  kings  introducing 
the  topic  of  the  Paper  in  the  Pulpit.  How  strange 
to  find  this  interesting  person,  in  addition  to  the 
very  many  amiable  actions  of  his  memorable  reign, 
taking  upon  himself  the  delivery  of  a  lecture  on 
Homiletics  !  Truly,  a  many-sided,  and  most  religious 
king !  He  was,  however,  far  from  solitary  in  his 
antipathy  to  read  sermons,  although,  we  confess,  to 
us  there  seems  very  little  difference,  on  the  purely 
moral  side  of  the  argument,  between  the  sermon 
read  and  the  sermon  recited  ;  indeed,  the  sermon 
read  has  certainly  the  advantage  in  point  of  honesty. 


234      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

We  do  not  know  what  effect  the  mandate  of  Charles 
had  upon  his  own  immediate  neighbourhood  and 
times,  but  certainly  we  suppose  that,  throughout  the 
two  centuries  since, — especially  in  the  English 
pulpit, — may  we  not  say  more  especially  in  the 
pulpit  of  the  Church  of  England  ? — the  black  sermon 
case  has  been  for  the  most  part  an  indispensable 
piece  of  pulpit  furniture.  As  the  well-known  old 
couplets  have  it, 

*'  In  point  of  sermons,  'tis  confessed, 
Our  English  clergy  make  the  best ; 
And,  what  seems  paradox  at  first, 

They  make  the  best  and  preach  the  worst." 

And  the  making  of  a  sermon  has  usually  been 
considered  too  lengthy  and  fearful  an  undertaking 
to  add  or  superadd  to  it  the  more  fearful  task  of 
committing  to  memory.  Dr.  Beattie,  who  certainly 
was  possessed  of  far  more  than  the  average  amount 
of  genius — a  poet  of  a  respectable  order,  a  philo- 
sopher of  some  rank,  and,  every  way,  a  useful  man, — 
supposes  that  a  minister  would  ordinarily  spend 
two  days  in  committing  a  discourse  to  memory.  If 
the  time  spent  in  learning  should  bear  any  propor- 
tion to  the  time  spent  in  preparing,  what  a  fearful* 
thing  the  preparation  for  the  pulpit  must  be  !  We 
should  say  that  such  iron  necessities  proclaim  the 
utter  unfitness  of  such  labourers  for  the  work  of 
the  pulpit  at  all. 

It  might  be  supposed  that  there  cannot  be  much 
interest  of  a  general  character  in  the  topic  of  this 
chapter, —  the  general  discussion  of  the  question  of 
the  Paper  in  the  Pulpit,  the  question  of  written  or 


THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT.  235 

unwritten  sermons  ;  the  matter,  however,  is  to  many 
preachers  one  of  very  great  moment.  A  writer,  a 
clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England,  in  a  very 
amusing  volume  of  clerical  anecdote,  called  a  "  Voice 
from  a  Mask,"  sets  forth  the  impoverished  state 
of  the  pulpit  of  his  own  church  in  very  affecting 
terms.  He  says,  "  It  is  no  wonder,  considering  how- 
much  labour  the  composition  of  a  sermon  costs  most 
of  us,  that  we  are  weary  of  them.  Some  of  my 
friends  entertain  an  affection  quite  parental  for  these 
offsprings  of  their  brain.  A  parson  of  this  character, 
who  kept  his  manuscripts  in  a  box  in  his  library,  was 
roused  from  his  slumbers  early  one  morning  by  his 
servant,  who  informed  him  that  his  house  had  been 
broken  into,  and  the  lower  rooms  ransacked  ;  'John,' 
cried  the  startled  divine,  jumping  up  in  the  bed, 
'John,  have  they,  Jiave  they  stolen  my  sermon  box  V 
'  No,  it  is  only  broken  open.'  '  Then,  John,  I  shall 
take  another  turn,  but  bring  up  my  shaving  water 
at  the  usual  time  ; '"  which  also  reminds  us  of  a  little 
clerical  tragedy  of  which  our  readers  may  have 
heard,  and  which  took  place  some  years  since  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  London.  The  story  is  so  good, 
it  ought  to  be  true.  Two  pulpits  in  the  small 
suburban,  village-like  town  were  filled  by  two 
pastors  of  the  same  name, — John  Davis  was  the 
incumbent  of  the  Episcopal  Church  ;  John  Davis 
was  the  pastor  of  the  Congregational.  To  the  first, 
the  Episcopalian,  on  one  occasion  came  a  parcel  to 
the  Rev.  John  Davis  ;  he  opened  it.  It  contained 
books  evidently  intended  for  the  Nonconformist 
brother ;  the  Episcopalian  was  full  of  the  sense  of 
high   Church   dignity,  and  he  claimed   the  right  of 


236      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

his  Church  to  arrogate  the  exclusive  possession  of 
clerical  titles.  He  forwarded  the  parcel  to  its 
proper  destination,  with  the  curt  note,  "  Sir, — Had 
you  not  assumed  a  title  to  which  you  have  no  right, 
conferred  upon  you  neither  by  the  Church  nor  the 
State,  this  mistake  would  not  have  happened.  I  am. 
Sir,  yours,  John  Davis."  But,  shortly  after,  came 
another  parcel  to  the  village,  addressed  to  the  Rev. 
John  Davis  ;  but,  this  time,  it  found  its  way,  by  ill 
luck,  to  the  Congregationalist ;  it  was  opened,  and 
alas  !  alas !  it  also  had  missed  its  destiny.  It  was 
a  parcel  of  manuscript  sermons  from  one  of  the 
innumerable  dealers  in  that  kind  of  ware,  and  thus 
it  was  discovered  that  the  poor  Cleric  was  depen- 
dent on  that  method  of  supplying  his  own  pulpit ! 
This  parcel,  also  repacked,  was  forwarded  to  the 
surpliced  actor  with  the  appropriate  note,  "  Sir, — 
Had  you  not  assumed  an  office  for  which  you  have 
no  capacity,  and  to  which  you  have  no  right  con- 
ferred upon  you  either  by  nature  or  by  grace,  this 
mistake  could  not  have  happened.  I  am,  Sir,  yours, 
John  Davis." 

Such  stories  are  very  droll,  but  to  our  mind  it  is 
not  less  than  shocking — a  man  professing  to  be  a 
minister  of  God  and  His  truth,  and  having  nothing 
to  say  !  No  doubt  vanity  often  rushes  out  into 
speech  when  it  had  better  hold  its  tongue,  but  we 
have  thought  that  even  this  is  belter  than  the  sermon 
case,  the  black  book,  if  it  become  a  barrier  between 
the  preacher  and  the  mind  and  heart,  the  intelli- 
gence and  affections  of  his  audience  ;  and  with  this 
goes  another  thing,  it  is  usually  supposed  to  be 
dishonest.     A  man  who  gives  forth,  evidently  with 


THE  PAPER  7A    THE  PULPIT.  237 

no  feeling  at  all,  words  from  a  paper  for  twenty 
minutes,  or  half  an  hour,  why,  we  feel  the  multitude 
may  be  pardoned  for  thinking  that  very  likely  the 
words  are  not  his  own,  and,  indeed,  many  are  the 
sermons  over  which  that  prophetic  exclamation  may 
be  raised,  "Alas,  master,  for  it  was  borrowed  !  "  We 
may  have  some  odd  stories  to  tell  in  the  following 
pages  about  borrowed  or  stolen   sermons. 

But  it  is  wonderful  to  think  of  the  things  which 
have  been  done  without  the  paper  in  the  pulpit  ;  we 
will  not  refer  to  the  mighty  instances  of  the  great 
world  preachers,  the  Wesleys  and  Whitefields,  and 
their  attendant  army  of  compeers  or  predecessors  ; 
but  let  us  look  at  more  ordinary  men.  Is  it  not 
animating  to  read  such  an  account,  for  instance,  as 
we  have  of  the  good  and  venerable  Thomas  Scott, 
the  commentator  ?  Being  the  preacher  at  the  Lock 
Hospital,  then  one  of  the  most  distinguished  spheres 
in  the  Church  of  England,  in  London,  he  was,  at  the 
same  time,  lecturer  at  St.  Mildred's,  Bread  Street, 
about  four  miles'  distance,  also  at  Lothbury,  about 
a  mile  distant.  He  conducted  all  these  services  in 
the  following  manner.  At  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning  of  every  alternate  Sunday,  winter  as  well 
as  summer,  the  watchman  gave  one  hearty  knock  at 
the  door,  and  Mr.  Scott  and  an  old  man-servant  arose, 
for  he  could  not  go  out  without  breakfast  ;  he  then 
set  forth  to  meet  a  congregation  in  Lothbury,  about 
three  miles  and  a  half  from  his  own  residence.  It 
was  the  only  church  then  at  which  there  was 
service  so  early  as  six  o'clock  in  the  morning ;  and 
the  number  has  not  increased  since,  we  believe.  He 
had    from     two    to    three    hundred     auditors,     and 


238      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

administered  the  ordinance  of  the  Lord's  Supper  each 
time.  He  used  to  say  that,  if  at  any  time  in  his 
early  walk  through  the  streets,  in  the  depth  of 
winter,  he  were  tempted  to  complain,  the  view  of  the 
newsmen  equally  alert,  and  for  a  very  different 
object,  changed  his  repinings  into  thanksgivings. 
From  the  city  he  returned  home,  and,  at  about  ten 
o'clock,  assembled  his  family  to  prayers,  immedi- 
ately after  which  he  proceeded  to  the  chapel,  where 
he  performed  the  whole  service,  with  the  administra- 
tion of  the  ordinance  on  the  alternate  Sundays  when 
he  did  not  go  to  Lothbury.  His  sermons  were 
ingeniously  brought  into  an  exact  hour,  just  about  the 
same  time  being  spent,  he  said,  in  composing  them. 
His  biographer  mentions  his  once  accompanying  him 
to  the  afternoon  service  in  his  church  in  Bread  Street, 
nearly  as  far  as  Lothbury,  after  his  having  taken 
his  dinner  without  sitting  down.  On  this  occasion 
they  hired  a  hackney  coach  in  order  to  rest  his 
biographer,  but  Mr,  Scott  desired  that  he  might  not 
be  spoken  to,  as  he  needed  the  time  to  prepare  his 
sermon.  It  is  calculated  that  he  could  not  go  less 
than  fourteen  miles  every  Sunday,  frequently  the 
whole  on  foot ;  and,  beside  the  three  services,  he  had 
often  a  service  at  Long  Acre  Chapel,  or  elsewhere, 
on  his  way  home  in  the  evening,  when  he  concluded 
the  whole  with  family  prayer,  and  that  not  a  very 
short  one.  Considering  his  bilious  and  asthmatic 
habit,  this  was  immense  labour  ;  and  all  this  he  did 
even  on  the  very  next  Sunday  after  he  had  broken 
a  rib  by  falling  down  the  cabin  stairs  of  a  Margate 
packet.  But  Thomas  Scott  was  a  man  all  in  earnest. 
Some  may  perhaps  say  those  sermons  of  his  must 


THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT. 


239 


have  been  very  loose  stuff,  untempered  mortar  ;  no, 
his  week-day  life,  although  not  spent  in  preparing 
sermons,  was  passed  in  accumulating  material  which 
all  turned  to  use  in  the  pulpit.  His  mind  was  full  ; 
true,  he  did  not  care  about  pulpit  style,  and  he  had, 
no  doubt,  great  facility  for  the  conveyance  of 
religious  and  scriptural  instruction.  His  mind  was 
full  of  native  energy  too.  When  nearly  sixty  years 
of  age,  he  gave  himself  up  with  assiduity  to  the 
mastery  of  the  Hebrew  language,  and  at  sixty  he 
devoted  himself,  to  a  diligent  conquest  of  the  dififi- 
culties  of  Arabic.  This  is  necessary  to  say,  because 
to  determine  constantly  to  speak  in  public,  without 
writing,  or  preparation,  must  usually  be  almost  worth- 
less and  inconsecutive  mental  dissipation,  Thomas 
Scott  was  writing  his  large  commentary,  and  other 
works  of  a  similar  character,  during  the  week,  so  that, 
during  the  hour  or  two  before  preaching,  and  the  hour 
in  the  pulpit,  his  ideas  naturally  marshalled  themselves 
into  order  ;  and  he  was  very  likely  one  of  those 
preachers  who  preach  best  when,  having  furnished 
themselves  with  ideas,  they  leave  the  words  to  take 
care  of  themselves  ;  he  certainly  does  present  a 
striking  contrast  to  the  frightened  parson  who 
trembled  lest  his  box  of  sermons  should  have  fallen 
among  thieves.* 

We  suppose  that  the  men  whose  words  have  been 
like  a  fire  in  the  bones,  or  like  a  hammer  to  break 
the  rocks  in  pieces,  have  been  fearful  of  the  written 

*  We  must  not  allow  this  notice  of  Thomas  Scott  to  pass 
without  commending  his  life,  as  one  of  the  most  complete 
portraits  of  an  earnest  and  faithful  ministry  ("  Life  of  Rev. 
Thomas  Scott,"     By  John  Scott,  A.M.    1822). 


240      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

sermon,  or  the  paper  in  the  pulpit ;  they  have  pre- 
pared for  the  pulpit  with  great  and  conscientious 
care,  but  not  verbally  ;  they  saw  their  ideas  clearly, 
and  revolved  them  over  and  over,  until,  like  fuel  in 
the  furnace,  they  flamed,  A  very  eminent  Welsh 
minister  was  invited  to  London  to  preach  what  used 
to  be  considered  the  great  annual  sermon  of  the 
London  Missionary  Society ;  in  his  own  country  he 
always  preached  extempore,  but,  being  in  company 
with  Matthew  Wilks  and  the  mighty  John  Elias,  he 
inquired  of  old  Matthew  whether,  for  such  an  occa- 
sion, he  did  not  think  that  he  had  better  write  his 
sermon.  "Well,  for  such  an  occasion,"  said  Matthew, 
"perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  write  your  discourse, 
but,  at  any  rate,  let  us  have  plenty  of  fire  in  it." 
"But,"  said  John  Elias,  "he  cannot  carry  fire  in  paper." 
"Never  mind,"  said  Matthew;  "  paper  will  do  very 
well  to  light  the  fire  with."  This  is  the  only  value 
of  paper,  or  notes,  in  the  pulpit,  to  kindle  the  fuel 
already  there,  to  light  the  fire  with !  So  that  it  seems 
a  not  unnatural,  but,  indeed,  a  very  safe  and  manly 
thing,  at  any  rate,  to  take  the  notes  of  a  sermon  into 
the  pulpit,  as,  we  read,  was  the  habit  of  Mr.  Albert 
Barnes,  the  well-known  author  of  the  Notes.  When 
called  upon  to  preach  on  important  and  distinguished 
occasions,  he  took  his  manuscript  with  him  into  the 
pulpit,  spread  his  notes  before  him  on  the  Bible, 
and  preached  from  memory.  "  Now,"  said  he,  "  I'm 
safe ! " 

But  slavish  reading  can  never  be  true  preaching. 
A  man  can  scarcely  be  entitled  to  take  rank  as  a 
real  preacher  who  cannot,  whatever  he  may  have 
prepared,  freely  and  wisely  extemporise.     We   are 


THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT.  241 

favourable  to  the  idea  that,  so  far  as  possible,  a 
preacher  should  aim  to  carry  many  styles  into  the 
pulpit,  that  he  should  even,  if  possible,  aim  to  have 
a  variety  in  one  sermon  ;  at  any  rate,  one  may  be 
logical,  but  not  always  formally  logical,  and  one 
rhetorical,  but  not  always  rhetorical  :  true,  he  may 
appeal  to  any  measure,  to  the  judgment,  to  the 
pure  reason,  to  facts,  and  he  may  often,  and  safely, 
address  himself  to  the  imagination,  by  analogy  ; 
the  appeal  to  the  affections  should  be  more  sparing, 
but  most  tenderly  of  all  should  the  conscience  be 
touched — seldom,  but  firmly  as  a  surgeon  holds  his 
knife ;  only,  in  the  surgery  of  the  conscience, 
do  not  use  chloroform,  and  let  the  operation  be 
brief 

An  ingenious  analogy  has  been  drawn  by  Pro- 
fessor Edwards  Park,  who  has,  we  suppose,  written 
more,  and  more  wisely,  than  any  man  living,  on  the 
subject  of  preaching.  He  has  pictured  a  stranger 
standing  before  the  cylinder  machine,  in  one  of  the 
great  print  works  in  or  near  Manchester ;  he  is 
bewildered  by  its  complicated  processes;  the  yellow, 
or  the  purple  cloth  is  applied  to  one  part  of  the 
machine ;  it  is  drawn  between  the  main  cylinder 
and  the  rollers,  and,  in  a  few  minutes,  it  comes  forth 
from  another  part  of  the  machine  ; — it  comes  forth, 
not  the  plain  yellow,  nor  purple  fabric,  but  variegated 
with  eighteen  or  twenty  different  colours,  arranged 
in  festoons  of  leaves  and  flowers,  in  crimson  arches, 
or  scarlet  curves.  One  is  so  ornamented  as  to 
gratify  the  taste  of  a  European  princess  ;  another,  to 
captivate  an  Asiatic  king  ; — one  is  modestly 
adorned   for   a   Fellow  at  the    University  ;    another, 

16 


242      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

highly  coloured  for  a  half-civilised  African.  How- 
magical  all  these  emanations  must  appear  to  the 
stranger  who,  uninitiated  in  the  mystery  of  the 
machinery,  walks  round,  and  surveys  its  various 
complications  ;  the  mordant,  the  colour  boxes,  the 
engraven  rollers,  with  their  deep  intaglios  ;  and  then 
all  the  wheels,  and  the  bands  drawing  along  the 
fabric  when  saturated,  and  giving  the  result  in  the 
curious  or  splendid  pieces  of  variegated  work.  And 
such  is  the  power  of  the  real  speaker,  producing 
varied  results,  like  this  printing  machine.  Surely  he 
is  not  addressing  himself  merely  to  one  order  of  mind, 
and,  therefore,  in  a  large  congregation,  we  see  the 
unwisdom  of  travelling  along  in  such  a  line  that  the 
mind  is  not  left  free  to  speak  to  different  frames  of 
character,  feeling,  and  experience,  and  to  different 
attitudes  of  thought. 

A  purely  extemporary  speaker, — even  the  most 
accomplished, — will,  perhaps,  sometimes  find  him- 
self caught  in  what  may  seem  to  him,  much  more 
than  to  the  people  who  are  listening  to  him,  a 
difficult  and  complicated  involvement  of  words, 
reminding  us  of  what  Samuel  Rogers  mentioned,  in 
a  conversation  he  had  with  that  great  scholar, 
Professor  Porson,  in  which  Porson  contrasted  those 
two  great  orators,  William  Pitt  and  Charles  James 
Fox.  "  Mr.  Pitt,"  said  he,  "  conceives  his  sentences, 
as  he  utters  them, — Mr.  Fox  throws  himself  into 
the  middle  of  his,  and  leaves  it  to  Almighty  God 
to  get  him  out  again  ;  "  this  was  somewhat 
irreverently  expressed  by  the  Professor,  but  it  is 
the  true  idea  of  extemporaneous  speech.  Extem- 
porising will  often  be  exposed  to  difficulties  which 


THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT.  243 

only  a  very  honest  mind  can  overcome  and  make 
the  best  of.  When  Father  Taylor,  of  Boston,  once 
lost  himself,  and  became  bewildered  in  the  course  of 
his  sermon,  he  extricated  himself  by  the  exclamation, 
"  I  have  lost  the  track  of  the  nominative  case,  my 
brethren,  but  one  thing  I  know, — I  am  bound  for  the 
kingdom  !  "  and  the  frankness  of  such  a  confession 
would  be  sure  to  save  him  from  suffering  in  the 
esteem  of  his  audience.  But  the  more  stately  and 
dignified  masters,  it  is  very  obvious,  cannot  deliver 
themselves  in  that  way.  An  anecdote  is  told  of  the 
late  Thomas  Binney  ;  Dr.  Harris,  the  author  of 
"  Mammon,"  had  begged  his  services  for  some  anni- 
versary occasion,  and  Binney  declared  his  utter 
inability  to  prepare  an  adequate  sermon  ;  in  those 
days  he  was  a  strictly  extemporary  speaker,  although 
a  very  fastidious  one.  It  was  urged,  "  Oh,  come, 
come,  and  preach  such  and  such  a  sermon  ; 
it  is  ready  to  your  mind."  And  so  Mr.  Binney 
promised  that  he  would  take  the  service  ;  but  he, 
having  got  through  two  heads  of  the  discourse, 
became  bewildered.  "  Thirdly — thirdly — I  have 
forgotten  what  thirdly  was  !  "  he  said,  and  he  looked 
over  the  pulpit  to  where  Dr.  Harris  was  sitting. 
"  Brother  Harris,  what  was  thirdly  1  "  Harris 
looked  up,  and  said,  "  So-and-so."  "  Exactly,"  said  the 
discomfited  preacher,  who  then  pursued  his  way  with 
ease  and  happiness  to  the  end.  Perhaps  the 
drollest  instance  of  which  we  were  ever  personally 
aware  was  when  listening — about  fifty  years  since 
— to  dear  old  William  Jay,  at  Surrey  Chapel  ;  he 
was  closing  a  paragraph  with  a  verse  of  a  hymn,  and, 
strange    to    say,    although  a   well-known   verse,  he 


244      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

forgot  a  line  ;  he  began,  and  kept  up  the  first  three 
lines  vigorously  enough : 

**  Then  shall  I  see,  and  hear,  and  know 
All  I  desired  or  wished  below, 
And  all  my  powers  find  sweet  employ ■'* 

And  suddenly  the  memory  was  at  fault ;  but  the 
preacher  was  not  ;  he  turned,  he  looked  over  the 
pulpit  to  the  desk,  where  the  well-known  ancient 
clerk  was  sitting,  and  he  said,  "  Mr.  Benn,  what's 
the  next  line  ? "  But  it  was  a  droll  effect  when  an 
altogether  different  voice — rather  shrill  in  comparison 
with  Mr.  Jay's  rolling  tones — rose  from  the  up- 
turned face — 

"  In  that  eternal  world  of  joy  !  ** 

**  And  all  my  powers  find  sweet  employ  '*— 

came  forth  the  rolling  tones — 

"  In  that  eternal  world  of  joy  !  " 

Such  are,  or  have  been,  the  dilemmas  of  the 
pulpit,  to  which  we  have  somewhat  wandered  from 
the  remarks  of  Porson  on  the  difficulties  and 
dilemmas  of  Charles  James  Fox.  He  was  an  orator 
always  prepared,  because  he  could  speak  without 
preparation,  mighty  in  argument.  If  we  speak  of 
his  grand  and  uncombed  slovenliness  of  style,  that 
must  always  be  in  the  remembrance  of  what  a 
perfect  scholar  he  was,  and  how  impossible  it  was 
for  his  slovenliness  to  be  anything  other  than  the 
shaking  of  a  lion's  mane,  as  he  rose,  and  rushed  on 
in  his  fine  and  forcible  vehemence  of  style,  while  his 
words,  as  it  has  been  truly  said,  jostled,  struggled, 


THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT.  245 

crowded,  and  seemed  almost  to  quarrel  with  each 
other  in   the  earnest  desire  to  get  forth. 

But  the  paper  in  the  pulpit  !  We  suppose,  as 
we  have  already  implied,  it  is  usually  nervousness, 
nervous  fear,  which  carries  the  paper  there.  But, 
then,  the  man  who  parts  with  his  nervousness 
there,  often  parts  with  an  element  of  power. 

Ah !  it  is  only  the  extempore  speaker  who  can 
experience  that  fine  nervousness  which  such  a  de- 
scription as  this  of  Charles  James  Fox  implies,  and 
which,  not  satisfied  with  a  flow  of  words,  hesitates, 
and  pants,  until  the  tongue  catches  the  one  word 
which  shall  be  the  true  key  to  the  whole  argument. 
Nervousness  !  well,  no  doubt  shyness, — nervous  sus- 
ceptibility,— is  common  enough,  especially  in  young 
speakers,  but  we  believe  few  persons  have  noticed  the 
power  of  nervousness  as  an  element  of  successful 
oratory  ;  that  throbbing,  thrilling  nervousness  of 
emotion  united  to  the  perfect  command  over  the  sub- 
ject, and  interest  in  it  ;  these,  again,  united  to  perfect 
self-possession  ;  these,  in  the  degree  in  which  they 
rule  in  the  hand  of  an  orator,  constitute  a  sceptre  of 
success  and  power.  Nervousness  !  does  the  reader 
suppose  we  mean  the  fear  of  an  audience  }  Oh  no  ! 
it  is  not  there  the  man  trembles  ;  he  trembles  in  the 
presence  of  the  truth  he  is  to  unveil  ;  a  responsibility 
devolves  upon  him  ;  to  the  measure  to  which  he  feels 
the  living  heat  of  the  truth  he  announces,  he  will 
tremble  ;  there  is  the  solution  of  the  surprise  so 
often  expressed,  that  the  timid,  apparently  shrinking, 
and  nervous  speaker,  seems  to  be  the  very  man  who 
most  subdues  in  the  pulpit,  where,  especially,  the 
emotions   have  to  be   aroused  ;  he  is  the  man  who 


246      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

uses  words  as  if  brandishing  a  sword  of  flame,  or 
rolls  them  like  retiring,  and  scarcely  audible  thunders, 
but  is,  even  therefore,  more  impressive  ;  and  it  is  re- 
markable that  the  excitement  seems  to  increase  in 
proportion  to  the  preparation  bestowed.  Many  of 
the  most  eminent  of  modern  preachers  have  met 
their  audiences  with  most  fear.  Afraid  of  yoic 
do  you  think  they  were  ?  Men  have  heard  such 
preach,  and,  enraged  beneath  words  of  fire,  they 
have  called  the  pulpit  "  Coward's  Castle."  Do  you 
think  it  was  so  ?  The  epithet  and  the  allegation  are 
not  more  ungenerous  than  they  are  unjust.  What 
are  the  prerogatives  assumed  by  the  pulpit  in  com- 
parison with  the  frequent  audacities  assumed  by  the 
bar .?  No,  it  was  neither  cowardice  nor  physical 
nervousness  ;  it  was  the  breathless  awe  inspired  by 
the  awful  invisible  world  to  which  the  things  "  seen 
and  temporal  "  interposed  so  faint  and  frail  a  screen. 
And  a  man  may  expound,  or  talk  untremulously  with 
a  certain  felicity  of  words  and  thoughts,  but  inspi- 
ration gives  palpitation  and  trepidation.  No  doubt 
there  are  those  whose  idea  of  the  pulpit  is  widely 
different  from  ours;  men  who,  as  they  enter,  gaze  with 
an  impudent  self-sufficiency  round  their  congregation. 
Oh  !  we  know  such  men  ;  these  are  they  who  regard 
a  pulpit  service  as  a  dramatic  entertainment,  an 
amusement,  a  recitation  ;  such  men  never  knew  a 
godly  fear,  and  are  altogether  unsusceptible  to  a 
nervous  trembling  lest  the  ark  be  taken  ;  they  would 
smile  at  the  timidity  of  Uzzah,  who  only  steadied 
the  ark  ;  they  would  take  the  tabernacle  and  all  its 
furniture  and  exhibit  it  all  "  for  the  glory  of  God  " 
for  a  cent  a  head.     To  these   men  a  church  chalice 


THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT.  247 


is  as  good  as  any  other  cup  for  a  drinking  vessel  ; 
a  font  is  a  wash-hand  basin,  and  a  baptistery  a 
capital  place  for  a  bath  ;  knowing  nothing  of 
nervousness  themselves,  they  misunderstand  it,  and 
look  on  it  with  contempt.  We  know  these  buffoons 
in  the  pulpit.  We  have  them  in  England,  and  so 
also  have  they  in  America.* 

But  as  to  the  paper  in  tne  pulpit,  the  question  may 
be  proposed,  What  does  the  preacher  intend  to  be  } 
Does  he  intend  to  be  an  orator  or  a  teacher  }  if  an 
orator,  then  he  must  rise  above  the  paper,  or  only 
use  it,  as  we  have  already  said,  to  carry  the  fire  in 
it.  Does  he  intend  to  inflame,  or  to  inform  } — if  to 
inflame,  then  he  must  rise  above  the  paper  ;  the 
colloquial,  the  Socratic,  must  live  above  the  paper,  and 
so  must  the  forensic.  Paper  is  certainly  a  non- 
conductor in  the  pulpit,  and  interferes  with  the 
dynamic  pQ,wer  of  the  word. 

For  indeed,  in  real  earnest,  we  must  say  human 
speech  is  not  a  power  to  be  despised,  and  if  our  age 
have  no  power  to  produce  earnest  tones  of  deep  and 
mighty  bass  pealing  through  the  great  nave  of  ages, 
like  those  voices  of  old,  and  if  our  age  despise  that 
power  of  eloquent  speech,  why,  so  much  the  worse 
for  it ;  eloquence  is  one  of  the  dynamic  forces  of 
the  moral  world.  It  is  one  of  the  great  levers 
wherewith  God  lifts  human   souls.     And   as  all  art, 

*  The  writer  was  in  an  omnibus  in  Broadway,  New  York.     A 

gentleman  recognised  him  and  said,  ' '  Have  you  heard ?  ' ' 

(mentioning  a  popular  preacher).  "  No,"  we  replied.  "  Oh, 
but  you  must  hear  him  ;  everybody  going  to  London  hears 
the   Christy   Minstrels,  and  everybody   coming  to  New  York 

hears !  "     Did  not  this  give  a  fine  idea  of  the  vocation 

of  the  preacher  ? 


248      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

and  all  aesthetic  taste  are  ennobled  as  they  become 
sanctified  by  religion  ;   as  the  mightiest  architecture 
is  Gothic  ;  the  mightiest  poets,  Milton,  Shakespeare, 
and   Dante ;  the    mightiest   musicians,    Handel   and 
Mozart;  the  mightiest  painter,  Raphael ;  the  mightiest 
sculptors,  Michael  Angelo  and  Thorwaldsen  ;  as  all 
art  heaves  with  the  inspiration  of  greatest  ideas  as  it 
approaches  the  Holy  of  holies,  and  especially  as  it 
approaches  Calvary  and  the   Cross,  so  eloquence   is 
no  exception  to  what,  indeed,  is  the  very  law  of  art. 
The  grandest  eloquence  of  all   ages    is  that  of  the 
pulpit  ;  the  eloquence   of  the  senate  and   the  bar  is 
quite  empirical  and  ephemeral.    A  Christian  minister! 
Well,  the  work,  and  the  task  are  as  glorious  as  they 
are  wonderful,  the   unveiling   to  the  world  the  most 
sublime  and    affecting    picture   which    can    possibly 
engage  human  attention  ;  when   the  Bible   is   fairly 
looked  at,  with  all  its  subjects,  and  it  is  recollected 
that  the  Christian  minister  is  to  be  the  exponent  of 
the  idea  of  the  Book,  and  all   its  wonderful  epics  of 
moral    sublimity,    the    coldness,    the   tameness,  and 
insipidity  of  pulpit  exposition  are  only  less  marvellous 
than  the  subjects  the  teachers  are  called  to   discuss. 
But  surely  warm  love  and  earnest  faith  would  create 
a   high  order  of   eloquence  anywhere,  and  on  any 
tongue  ;   eloquence,  moulded  by  the  character  of  the 
possessor   of   it,   in   some   deep  and  penetrative,   in 
others  sounding  and  soaring,  in  any  case,  eloquence. 
If   we    could   speak  to    ministers  and  teachers,   we 
would   say,  Have  faith    in  human  speech.      Human 
speech,  we  have  said,  when  it  flows  from  an  earnest 
and   harmonious  spiritual   life,   is   one   of  the  most 
powerful  agents  God  has  sent  into  the  world.     We 


THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT.  249 

have  said  it  is  inferior  to  no  art,  for  it  may  embody 
and  comprehend  every  art  ;  it  is  statuary  in  the 
body,  it  is  painting  on  the  tongue  ;  epic  or  dramatic, 
it  may  hold  and  embody  both,  and  enchant  the 
passions  of  entranced  auditors  equally  with  music 
and  song.  Men  possess  this  august  and  magnetic 
power,  and  affect  to  despise  it,  and  use  it  without 
responsibility  and  preparation,  when  this  power 
would  transfix  human  hearts  like  a  target,  and  make 
human  ears  tingle,  and  human  hearts  tremble. 

It  is  amazing,  amazing  how  men  will  underrate 
the  value  of  oral  instruction,  amazing  how  they 
will  hit  on  the  wrong  method,  and  argue  all  time 
and  all  eternity  out  of  countenance  that  it  is  the 
right  plan  ;  once  for  all,  it  ought  to  be  understood 
that  the  man  who  is  a  teacher  is  expected  to  do 
something  with  the  truth,  and  for  the  truth,  that 
cannot  be  done  by  any  other  mode  and  method. 
Perhaps  in  some  previous  pages,  and  another  work 
we  may  have  said  that  the  preacher  should  be 
neither  a  professor  of  logic,  nor  a  professor  of  belles 
lettres.  He  is  to  temper,  in  his  teaching,  light  and 
fire.  He  is  to  recollect,  as  Demosthenes  recollected, 
that  the  audience  is  impatient  of  chains  of  reasoning. 
He  must  show  the  result  at  the  end  of  the  links 
without  exhibiting  the  chain,  and  only  allow  his 
audience  rest  or  repose  in  order  to  rouse  sympathy, 
sensibility,  conscience,  and  admiration  more  fully,  and 
to  show  himself  a  workman  needing  not  to  be  ashamed. 

Plausibility  is  the  curse  of  the  pulpit  as  it  is  of 
everything  it  touches  ;  it  is  the  shibboleth  of  mean- 
ness ;  it  is  the  everlasting  hymn  in  the  mouth  of  the 
moral  huckster,  and  Cheap  John  of  the  platform  ;  it 


250      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

is  the  last  outcome  of  the  twopenny-halfpenny 
faculty.  Plausibility  is  always  a  sweet  refreshing  ice 
to  impatient  and  passionate  souls  ;  it  is  the  logic  of 
rationalism,  and  of  claptrap  ;  it  always  brushes  the 
bloom  from  the  peach,  and  holds  up  a  prism  to  the 
rainbow  ;  it  will  never  accept  beauty  without  dissect- 
ing it  ;  it  is  ever  engaged  in  giving  its  bald,  shallow, 
reasonless  reasons  for  things  ;  it  has  no  mystery,  no 
ideal  ;  it  will  account  for  love  and  faith  by  the 
motions  of  the  blood,  while  it  finds  the  Divine  wonders 
of  heaven  and  hell  to  be  only  the  dizziness  of  the 
soul.  This  plausibility  is  the  miserable  ghost  that 
has  haunted  and  terrified  so  many  of  our  modern 
preachers  ;  this  plausibility,  this  pleasing  everybody, 
and  satisfying  everybody,  or  nobody,  which  is  the 
same  thing,  is,  we  repeat,  the  curse  of  the  pulpit. 

And  it  is  this  insatiable  sacrifice  to  plausibility 
which  constitutes  very  much  of  the  slavery  to  the 
paper  in  the  pulpit  ;  but,  again,  let  us  remember  that, 
with  the  paper  in  the  pulpit,  a  style  may  be  too  good 
for  usefulness,  too  fastidious,  too  much  of  a  "  linked 
sweetness  long  drawn  out,"  too  analytic,  too  cour- 
teous to  the  fashions  of  the  age  in  thought  and 
style,  and  have  too  much  of  the  drawing  or  reception 
room,  too  little  of  the  street. 

Again,  we  say,  everything  depends  upon  what  the 
preacher  intends  to  do.  There  are  words  which  will 
not  bear  reading  ;  there  are  others  which  will  not 
bear  speaking.  And,  then,  let  us  remark,  in  paren- 
thesis, that  the  pulpit  of  any  denomination  has  very 
few  good  readers.  We  know  one  of  the  most  lofty 
intelligences  who  always  reads  ;  it  is  manifest  he 
does  not  feel  much  interest  in  what  he  reads.     The 


THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT.  251 

interest  he  feels  in  his  opinions  is  not  that  interest 
which  would  lead  him  to  feel  the  necessity  either  of 
their  publication  or  reception.  He  is  so  thoroughly 
eclectic,  he  preaches  as  a  professor  might  be  sup- 
posed to  speak  from  a  professor's  chair  to  students. 
It  does  not  follow  because  a  man  reads  that  he 
should  not  be  an  orator,  that  he  should  not  feel, 
and  feel  deeply  himself,  and  also  take  captive  the 
feelings  of  his  audience.  The  reader  usually  deals 
more  with  the  realm  of  mental  than  moral  convic- 
tion ;  often  he  deals  rather  with  metaphysical  dis- 
quisition, or  conducts  his  hearers  to  the  heavens  of  a 
rapt  and  starry  fancy  ;  but  those  mighty  and  over- 
powering passions  of  the  soul,  which  sweep  in  their 
circles  language,  feeling,  thought,  and  compel  their 
utterance  in  tones  which  startle,  and  which  awe,  to 
these  he  seems  to  be  a  stranger  ;  we  feel  that  the 
human  is  not  near  enough  to  us  ;  it  may  be  the 
humanity  of  the  intellect,  but  it  is  not  humanity  in 
its  wholeness  ;  there  is  no  indication  of  the  mind 
that  reflects  Elijah,  Isaiah,  Paul,  or  Peter,  and, 
perhaps,  not  even  John.  He  would  not  waylay 
Ahab  ;  nor  dash  his  harp  in  frenzy,  or  fire,  till  the 
chords  shook  with  the  thunder  of  the  words,  "  Ho, 
every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  to  the  waters  1  " 
"  Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord  ! "  "  Arise,  shine, 
for  thy  light  is  come !  "  He  would  not  admire  the 
passion  of  the  man  who  could  gird  himself  for  the 
tempest  of  speech,  and  say,  "  Woe  is  me  if  I  preach 
not  the  gospel  !  "  He  lives  in  a  realm  of  abstractions, 
all  of  them  glittering  like  stars  on  a  frosty  night, 
most  of  them  as  remote  and  cold  ;  to  such  a  man 
preaching  is  an  easy  intellectual  gladiatorship  with 


252      THE    VOCATION  OF  2 HE  PREACHER. 

mental  shadows  and  phantoms,  in  which  the  chil- 
dren of  fancy  are  set  to  disperse  the  children  of 
thought.  Such  a  man  cannot  speak  ;  he  must  read — 
such  a  man  cannot  be  spoken  of  as  an  orator  ;  he  has 
scarcely  any  words  for  the  multitude  ;  his  thoughts, 
his  tones,  his  sentences  can  only  be  the  property  of 
men  of  taste,  and  reading  men  endowed  with  more 
than  an  ordinary  share  of  intelligence  ;  the  imagery 
is  exceedingly  select,  and  every  performance  may 
bespeak  the  most  polished  individuality,  and  may  be 
the  real  life  lava  of  the  soul  of  the  man.  And  there 
may  be  fire  in  the  words,  but  the  fire  rather  of 
Hecla  than  Vesuvius  or  Etna  ;  it  comes  to  us  through 
the  ice,  and  the  snow  ;  there  is  a  cold  iron-grey  sky 
overhead,  and  a  wintry  snowy  waste  around  ;  and 
yet  this  read  discourse  may  abound  in  most  beautiful 
and  affecting  words,  but  reminding  us  of  cameos 
carved  in  pumice  stone,  or  lava. 

We  are  attempting  to  set  before  our  readers  the 
man  who  reads  habitually.  His  pulpit  is  lit  by  the 
lamps  of  poetry  and  philosophy,  and  both  are 
trimmed  by  the  oil  of  nature.  We  read,  or  we  hear, 
and  we  say.  Revelation  has  done  little  here  ;  we  say 
it,  and  we  say  it  respectfully,  the  good  man  might 
as  well  take  texts  from  the  Greek  tragedians,  or 
from  the  "Republic,"  the  "  Phaedon,"  or  the  "Phaedrus" 
of  Plato.  We  may  offend  some  prejudices  when  we 
say  that  the  men  who  preach  from  experience, 
usually,  are  unequal  to  notes,  or  written  sermons  ;  the 
power  of  the  personal  pronoun  will  not  be  confined 
within  a  cage  of  written  words ;  men  who  have 
felt  sin,  and  fled  from  the  wrath  to  come,  have 
learned  this,   that    nature  will  give  to   us  a   lamp 


2 HE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT.  253 

sufficiently  bright  to  show  the  gloom,  but  she  has  no 
lamp  to  show  the  pathway  from  it.  She  can  show 
to  us  sin,  but  she  cannot  show  to  us  the  means  of 
escape.  The  reader  knows  Schiller's  Diver  ;  has  he 
descended  with  him  for  the  lost  vase,  the  cup,  into 
the  boiling,  seething,  howling  abyss  }  Did  he  go 
down  into  the  pathless  obscure,  into  the  silent 
horror  of  the  unfathomed  and  unfathomable  deep  } 
among  the  dreadful  beings  of  the  water,  the  sala- 
mander, the  snake,  the  dragon  .''  the  dreadful  rep- 
tiles that  glided  through  the  dark }  the  terrible 
hammer  fish,  the  shark,  the  hyena  of  the  ocean  ? 
And  is  it  not  a  picture  of  the  vision  that  opens  to  a 
man  when  for  the  first  time  he  knows  sin,  not 
perhaps  by  committing  it,  but  by  perceiving  its 
infinite  relations  and  its  horror  ?  What  intensity  it 
gives  to  the  moral  vision,  the  sense  of  sin  I  The  per- 
ception of  the  Saviour  deepens  even  that  sense. 
Now  if  the  Diver  can  come  back,  and  sing, — 

"  Methought,  as  I  gazed  through  the  darkness,  that  now 
It  saw  the  dread  hundred-limbed  creature — its  prey ! 
And  darted — O  God — from  the  far-flaming  bough 
Of  the  coral ;  I  swept  o'er  the  horrible  way, 
And  it  seized  me,  the  wave  with  its  wrath  and  its  roar, 
It  seized  me  to  save ;  King,  the  danger  is  o'er  !  "  * 

The  man  who  has  dived  down  into  the  terrible 
sea,  and  has  returned  with  the  cup,  who  has  learned 
the  secret  of  "  the  deep  that  coucheth  beneath,"  who 
has  learned  how  "  to  play  upon  the  hole  of  the  asp," 
and,  returning  thence,  has  heard  "  the  precious  things 

*  We  believe  we  are  indebted  for  the  appropriation  of  this 
image  from  Schiller  to  Professor  Tholuck's  beautiful  little 
work  "  Guido  and  Julius." 


254      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

of  the  everlasting  hills,"  has  something  to  say  which 
will  not  go  on  paper.  Here  is  a  simple  illustration 
we  heard  once,  in  Manchester,  from  a  preacher,  some- 
times rough,  but  always  strong,  and  deeply  versed  in 
the  ways  of  human  experience.  Gadsby  was  his 
name  ;  "  Billy  Gadsby,"  the  people  delighted  to  call 
him.  A  woman  who  always  attended  his  ministry  was 
accosted  by  a  friend,  one  of  the  Cavendish  people, 
accustomed  to  the  fine,  orderly,  and  wise  preaching 
of  Dr.  H alley,  who  expressed  surprise  that  her  friend 
could  be  satisfied  with  the  rougher  ministrations  of 
Gadsby  ;  her  friend  replied,  and  said,  "  When  I  was 
a  girl  among  the  hills,  I  often  had  to  pass  at  night 
through  a  long  wild  tunnel  among  the  hills,  and 
there  was  an  echo,  and  it  often  frightened  me  ;  I 
was  only  a  girl  ;  I  seemed  to  hear,  as  my  feet  went 
on,  the  clatter  of  feet  behind  me.  I  remember  once 
in  my  fright,  I  said,  'Betty!'"  (that  was  her  name), 
"and  a  voice  directly  said, '  Betty!'  Now  that  is  why 
I  go  to  hear  that  man, — whenever  he  speaks,  I  hear 
something  within  me  saying,  '  Betty  !  *  That  is  the 
perfection  of  preaching  when  something  within  says, 
'Betty!'" 

We  will  say  another  thing  :  the  preachers  of  the 
paper  have  done  most  in  our  age  to  aid  its  negations. 
The  preacher  should  be,  whoever  he  may  be,  affirma- 
tive ;  the  preacher  is  not  to  use  the  pulpit  to  air 
his  doubts,  and  to  show,  and  set  forth  the  disease 
which  has  found  him  unless  he  have  also  found  its 
cure.  Some  preachers  remind  us  as  they  set  forth 
their  crude  surmisings,  suggestive  unbeli^is,  and  in- 
competent attempts  to  grapple  with  their  own 
doubts,  of   a    physician    who  wrote    to    Sir   Henry 


THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPI2.  255 

Halford,  boastfully  setting  forth  his  own  claims 
to  consideration  :  "  Sir,  I  was  not  only  the  first  to 
discover  Asiatic  cholera,  but  I  was  the  first  to 
communicate  it  to  the  British  Empire;"  and  that 
preacher  whose  boast  it  is  that  he  first  presented 
to  a  mind  thoughts,  and  ideas,  evil  and  dangerous 
in  themselves,  but  which  had  not  found  a  lodging 
there  before,  may  claim  an  equal  rank  in  benevo- 
lence with  this  discoverer  and  propagator  of  Asiatic 
cholera. 

Did  our  readers  ever,  in  their  hearing,  hear  of  the 
angel  Uriel  ? — how,  in  the  far-off  ages,  spaces,  and 
splendours  of  eternity,  he  became  afflicted  in  his 
own  soul  with  the  idea  of  night  ?  How  the  idea  of 
night  could  enter  the  mind  of  an  archangel,  we 
know  not,  but  it  did !  it  haunted  him  with  the 
thought  that  somewhere,  in  the  deeps  and  the  limbos 
of  the  universe,  there  was  a  realm  of  night,  and,  in 
quest  of  it,  the  foolish  archangel  started  from  heaven, 
from  its  golden  pavements,  and  its  clear  skies,  and 
its  rivers,  and  fountains  of  living  water,  bright  ever 
in  the  splendour  of  a  world  lit  up  without  a  sun.  He 
left  all ;  he  wended  his  way  through  the  universe, 
groping  amidst  the  glory  of  things  for  the  realm  of 
night ;  he  wandered,  and  roamed,  but  he  could  not 
find  it.  Every  kingdom  had  its  gates  of  pearl,  and 
its  turrets  of  diamond  ;  everywhere  the  doors  of  the 
worlds  rolled  on  hinges  of  light  ;  and  the  pathways 
of  the  planets  in  that  old  time  were  paved  with 
sunshine  ;  and  Uriel,  as  he  passed  along,  sped  through 
files  and  ranks  of  radiant  pinions  ;  but  within  him, 
within  him,  lay  the  dark  idea.  Yet  the  most  ancient 
archangel  with  whom  he  conversed  could  not  direct 


256      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 


him  to  the  kingdom  of  night.  It  was  an  unhappiness 
in  an  angel,  and  beyond  our  comprehension.  At  last 
he  reached  one  of  the  firmaments  in  space,  whence, 
looking  down,  he  beheld  the  shape  of  a  world  with 
a  shadow  on  it.  And  the  heart  of  the  angel  knew 
its  world  ;  he  hastened  down,  and  entered  the  terri- 
tories of  the  empire  of  night.  It  was  but  the  realisa- 
tion of  himself;  but  what  was  his  horror  and 
dismay,  what  spasms  shot  through  his  spirit,  as  the 
lonely  archangel  found  himself  in  that  lonel)'-  and 
awful  world !  he  looked  up,  and  saw  only  a  canopy  of 
blackness  above  him,  save  for  one  bright  point  in  space ; 
he  knew  that  to  be  the  Infinite  Eye,  then,  for  the 
first  time,  burning  on  him,  for  the  angels  who  have 
the  light  of  God  within  them  do  not  see  the  dreadful 
presence  of  His  robe  of  lightning.  In  those  worlds 
it  holds  that  the  angels  who  see  most  of  God  with- 
out, feel  and  see  least  of  Him  within.  So  all  round 
the  angel  spread  night,  dark  night  ;  and  the  worst 
of  all  was  that  he  had  lost  all  clue  to  the  pathway 
by  which  he  came.  How  vainly  Uriel  mourned  over 
the  past  ;  how  vainly  he  attempted  to  return.  He 
sighed  for  the  light  and  the  sunshine  ;  in  vain  :  he 
cannot  return;  he  belongs  now  to  the  empire  of 
night !  Did  our  reader  ever  meet  the  angel  who  has 
lost  his  way,  on  the  darkness  fringing  our  planet  ? 
We  think  we  have  sometimes  seen  him,  trailing  his 
dark  garments,  and  heard  him  uttering  his  wail  of 
despair  over  a  lost  heaven. 

In  closing  this  chapter,  we  more  than  a  little 
demur  to  the  verdict  of  the  good  and  great  Andrew 
Fuller  when  he  heard  Dr.  Chalmers  preach.  "  If 
that    man,"    he    said,    "  would   but   throw  away  his 


THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT.  257 

papers  in  the  pulpit,  he  might  be  King  of  Scotland." 
The  truth  was  that  Chalmers,  in  his  own  region, 
was  King  of  Scotland,  in  spite  of  his  papers  in  the 
pulpit,  for  his  soul  was  full  of  movement ;  but  the 
criticism  of  Fuller  produced  a  great  effect  on  the 
mind  of  Chalmers,  for,  when  he  heard  it,  we  find 
that  he  wrote  in  his  journal :  "  Let  me  henceforth 
attempt  to  extemporise  from  the  pulpit ;  let  me 
decline  all  extra  engagements  ;  let  me  redeem  time, 
and  give  a  steady  and  systematic  direction  to  my 
efforts."  It  is  clear  that,  if  he  carried  his  manu- 
script with  him  into  the  pulpit,  it  was  that  it  might 
operate  on  his  character  there,  perhaps  to  restrain 
something  of  that  overwhelming  vehemence  which 
was  always  quite  sufficiently  in  play,  as  all  must  re- 
member who  listened  to  the  astonishing  power  with 
which  he  bore  down  all  before  him  from  the  first 
moment  when  he  began  to  speak.  Such  written 
words  remind  us  of  the  famous  dart  of  Alceste,  the 
Sicilian,  of  whom  Virgil  sings,  and  of  which  we  read 
that  he  hurled  it  with  such  force  that  it  took  fire 
from  the  friction  as  it  passed  through  the  air.  The 
written  words  of  such  men  become,  when  spoken,  to 
quote  the  language  of  Lord  Brougham,  *'  like  sparks 
thrown  from  off  the  motion  of  an  engine,  they  are 
not  fireworks  to  amaze  by  their  singularity,  or  to 
please  by  their  beauty :  it  is  all  for  use,  not  orna- 
ment ;  all  for  work,  nothing  for  display."  So  ought 
true  speaking  to  be  ever  to  a  soul,  taking  fire  from 
its  own  motion  ;  as  our  beloved  Longfellow  sings, — 
**  Like  Alceste's  dart  of  old, 
The  swift  thought  kindling  as  it  flies." 

On  the  whole,  it  is  not  to  be   supposed  that  the 

17 


258      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

mere  fact  of  a  man  having  his  paper  with  him  in 
the  pulpit  is  necessarily  a  serious  hindrance  to  his 
great  usefulness  and  success  ;  it  seems  certain  that 
the  greatest  orators  of  the  ancient  Church,  such  as 
Chrysostom,  Augustine,  and  Gregory  the  Great,  did 
not  disdain  such  assistance.  Coming  down  to  later 
times,  our  dear  Richard  Baxter  says  very  signifi- 
cantly, "  I  use  notes  as  much  as  any  man  when  I 
take  pains,  and  as  little  as  any  man  when  I  am 
lazy,  or  busy,  and  have  no  time  to  prepare."  As  to 
Whitefield  and  Wesley,  if  they  did  not  read  their 
sermons,  we  know  that  they  wrote  them,  and  that 
they  were  repeated,  again  and  again,  as  they  moved 
rapidly  from  place  to  place.  In  our  own  day, 
reading  did  not  interfere  with  the  great  success  of 
Payson,  with  the  passion  of  Dr.  Guthrie,  or  the 
tender  accentuation  and  pathos  of  John  Harris  ;  but 
what  shall  we  say  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  whose  fame 
as  a  pulpit  orator  we  would  far  rather  covet  than 
that  which  surrounds  with  a  false  splendour  the 
memory  of  Bossuet  .''  Why,  Edwards  was  an  orator 
perhaps  beyond  any  whom  we  have  known,  or  heard 
speak  ;  but,  while  he  stood  motionless  in  the  pulpit, 
one  hand  resting  on  it,  and  the  other  holding  up  his 
little  closely  written  manuscript  to  his  eyes,  the 
history  of  the  pulpit  has  few  more  extraordinary 
instances  than  those  which  are  related  of  his  power  : 
cold  indifferentism  was  roused  from  its  careless  apathy 
when  he  preached  ;  his  beautiful  spirit — for  exceed- 
ingly beautiful  the  spirit  of  this  terrible  man  was — 
used  to  startle  men  until,  before  he  had  proceeded 
far,  they  began  to  wail  and  weep  Once,  while 
proceeding  calmly  along,  with   one  of   those   quiet 


THE  PAPER  IN  THE  PULPIT. 


J59 


utterances  in  which  the  whole  soul  of  the  man  was 
kindling  dread  and  fear  in  the  minds  of  the  people, 
the  aged  minister  of  the  place  in  which  he  was 
speaking  rose,  and  standing  at  the  foot  of  the  pulpit 
stairs,  said,  "  Oh,  Mr.  Edwards  !  sir,  spare  the 
people ;  sir,  spare  the  people  !  "  On  another  occasion, 
when  preaching  on  the  certainty  of  death,  and  the 
assurance  of  a  coming  judgment,  the  people,  with 
pallor  in  their  faces,  started  from  their  seats,  all 
looking  up,  expecting  to  see  the  parting  of  the 
heavens,  and  the  Son  of  man  coming  to  the  judg- 
ment. But  Edwards'  soul  was  in  his  papers,  and 
Rufus  Griswold,  one  of  his  American  critics,  says, 
"  His  triumphs  of  eloquence  were  such  as  are  not 
dreamed  of  by  those  who  deem  themselves  masters 
of  the  art  from  reading  the  foolish  receipt  ascribed 
to  Demosthenes."*  But  let  no  one  think  of  attain- 
ing to  the  power  of  Edwards  unless  they  are  pre- 
pared to  live  like  Edwards  ;  he  lived,  an  absorbed 
spirit,  in  the  study.  In  the  middle  of  the  day  his 
wife  took  him  up  his  dinner  of  bread  and  milk,  and 
sat  conversing  with  him  ;  then  it  was  his  frequent 
wont  to  start  off  for  his  walk  of  pastoral  visitations 
during  the  afternoon,  and  we  may  be  very  sure 
they  were  not  ministerial  calls  of  the  popular  and 
profitless  kind.  Then  he  came  back  again  to  his 
study.  He  was  a  man  of  faith  and  prayer,  a  man 
who  handled  the  things  which  are  unseen  as  things 
really  felt  and   seen  ;    a    mind    shining    through  a 

*  Admiration  does  not  always  imply  discipleship,  and 
Jonathan  Edwards  we  are  much  in  the  habit  of  regarding  as 
a  Herbert  Spencer  among  theologians,  whose  inexorable 
logic  is  one  of  the  fearful  stories  of  the  Nemeses  of  Thought. 


26o       THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

beautiful  face,  not  uncheerful — giving  no  idea 
indeed  of  that — but  terribly  in  earnest,  with  a 
dreadful  sense  that  sin  was  sin, — Satan,  Satan, — 
and  Christ,  Christ.  A  man  of  this  order  may  do  as 
he  likes  about  the  minor  matter  of  paper  in  the 
pulpit  :  should  he  take  it  with  him,  it  will  most 
likely  be  because  he  desires  to  guard  reverently,  and 
to  utter  with  a  tender  accent  the  words  which  have 
been  given  to  him  ;  but  the  pathos,  dread,  and 
reality  of  his  own  nature  will  create  an  earnestness, 
an  alarm,  and  sense  of  reality  when  he  comes  to 
talk  with  other  men. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

JAMES  PARSONS. 

"  Then  said  Evangelist,  pointing  with  his  finger  over  a  very  wide 
field,  Do  you  see  yonder  wicket-gate?  The  man  said,  No.  Then  said 
the  other.  Do  you  see  yonder  shining  light  ?  He  said,  I  think  I  do. 
Then  said  Evangelist,  Keep  that  light  in  your  eye,  and  go  up  directly 
thereto ;  so  shalt  thou  see  the  gate,  at  which,  when  thou  knockest,  it 
shall  be  told  thee  what  thou  shalt  do.  So  I  saw  in  my  dream  that  the 
man  began  to  run." 

JAMES  PARSONS,  the  man  of  York,  is  already 
a  tradition.  Great  preachers  soon  become  mere 
traditions,  but  we  suppose  the  preacher  of  all 
preachers  in  England  who  would  once  have  met  the 
most  universal  award  of  pre-eminence  in  the  pulpit 
was  James  Parsons,  of  York.  Wonderful  was  the 
excitement  in  the  religious  world  of  London  when 
the  youthful  Massillon  of  York  was  wont  to  make 
his  appearance  there.  The  most  spacious  temples  of 
Independency  were  thronged  hours  before  the 
service.  We  have  heard — though  what  degree  of 
truth  may  attach  to  the  legends  we  know  not — 
innumerable  stories  of  persons  continuing  in  the 
chapel  the  whole  of  the  intermediate  time  between 
the  morning  and  the  evening  services  so  as  to  secure 
sittings  ;  around  all  the  portals  thronging  crowds 
gathered  ;  the  staircases  and  the  chapel- yards  filled 


262      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

with  people,  straining  the  eye  to  catch  a  glimpse,  or 
the  ear  to  catch  an  intonation,  from  the  extraordinary 
and  inspired  young  man  ;  or  going  away  in  despair  of 
sufficiently  gratifying  ear  or  eye  ;  and  all  within,  a 
dense  and  compacted  sea  of  heads, —  aisles,  galleries, 
window-ledges,  pulpit-balustrades,  —  the  mighty 
masses  forgetting  all  discomfort,  and  hushed  and 
breathless  beneath  the  spell  of  a  voice  low  as  a 
whisper,  yet  capable  of  shaking  the  stoutest  spirit, — 
like  an  echo  through  a  sepulchre. 

And  in  his  young  days  he  was  as  potential  in 
York  as  in  London- ;  Lendal  Chapel  was  crowded, 
while  every  Sabbath  evening  the  young  preacher 
poured  along  a  rapid  torrent  of  imagery,  descrip- 
tion, invective,  declamation,  and  appeal.  There,  not 
infrequently,  the  loftiest  peers  of  the  realm — such  as 
Radnor,  Roden,  or  Carlisle — were  seen  rapt  in 
attention  in  the  plain  and  humble  conventicle  ;  there 
the  most  famous  barristers,  intending  to  snatch  a 
lesson  in  oratory,  found  their  spirits  caught  by  the 
strong  winds  of  a  mighty  impulsive  eloquence,  in  the 
burning  genius  of  which  all  the  petty  orators  of  the 
senate,  the  hustings,  or  the  bar,  quenched  their 
glimmering  tapers — the  preacher  himself  had  been 
intended  and  trained  for  the  bar,  and  his  style  in  the 
pulpit  was  eminently  forensic  ; — there  the  loftiest  and 
the  lowliest  felt  the  power  of  that  thin  slim  figure, 
the  Christian  witchery  of  that  vivid  blue  eye,  and 
the  momentum  of  the  slightly  raised  hand.  "  I 
never  did  hear  anything  like  it  before,  and  never 
expect  to  hear  anything  like  it  again,"  said  a  no-con- 
temptible critic  to  us  once  when  talking  of  those  old 
days    of  Lendal.     The  preacher  was  imperial  over 


JAMES  PARSONS.  263 

his  audience  ;  and  the  spare  frame, — slight,  weak, 
and,  as  most  then  thought,  soon  to  exchange  the 
robes  of  the  ministry  for  the  shroud  of  death, — all 
added  to  the  impression,  as  the  orator  at  last  sank 
exhausted  on  the  pulpit  seat,  or  was  borne,  as,  we 
understand,  was  not  unfrequently  the  case,  nearly 
fainting  from  the  pulpit. 

Does  the  reader,  who  only  knows  Mr.  Parsons 
by  a  more  modern  reputation,  and  in  his  last  days, 
find  it  difficult  to  realise  all  this }  The  writer  never 
witnessed  the  first  spells  of  the  magician,  but  he  is 
intimately  acquainted  with  his  pulpit  performances 
when  in  the  zenith  of  his  fame.  Often  had  the 
name  of  James  Parsons  been  pronounced  with 
wonder  and  rapture  by  those  who  had  heard  him, 
but  it  had  never  come  within  the  reach  of  our 
opportunity  to  hear.  We  had  seen  a  likeness,  too, 
and  a  very  good  one,  of  all  places,  upon  a  snuff-box  ; 
but  we  were  not  exactly  our  own  master  ;  boys  were 
not  so  lawless  then  as  now  ;  we  were  expected  to 
be  very  attentive  on  "  the  means  "  in  our  own  local 
chapel,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  London  ;  then,  the 
preaching  of  the  man  of  York  had  a  smack  of 
Arminianism  in  it,  or  Baxterianism  at  least,  quite  as 
bad,  which  the  Independents  who  received  their 
educations  and  impressions  two  or  three  generations 
since  could  scarce  tolerate  ;  nor  did  they  altogether 
relish  the  impetuosity  of  manner,  and  the  rush  of  the 
excitement  attending  on  the  ministry  of  this  young 
man  ;  so  it  happened  that  we  never  heard  James 
Parsons,  we  shame  to  say,  till  we  were  fifteen  years 
of  age,  though  living  at  no  great  distance  from  the 
scenery  of  his  frequent  enchantments  in  London. 


264      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

But  one  Tuesday,  in  a  winter  many  years  since, 
we  found  ourselves  thronging  with  a  vast  multi- 
tude into  what  was  then  known  as  the  Poultry 
Chapel,  where  the  usual  dense  aggregate  of  people 
gathered  together.  We  took  possession  of  a  seat ; 
and,  after  the  service  of  song,  prayer,  and  reading, 
a  man,  of  all  men  apparently  remarkable  for  a 
timid  hesitancy  of  manner — a  bashful  fear  to  en- 
counter the  eyes  of  the  people — stood  before  us  : 
but,  eh  !  and  alas !  no,  sirs  !  not  a  word  ! — the  text 
was  utterly  unintelligible  till  some  dear,  kind,  nice, 
old  lady,  into  whose  pew  we — an  impudent  boy — 
had  thrust  ourselves, — an  old  lady,  with  a  quiet, 
kind  precision  of  manner — every  chapel  has  such  old 
ladies ;  how  often  were  we  indebted  to  them  in 
those  days  for  the  comforts  of  books,  and  pews,  and 
cushions — placed  before  us  the  text — a  terrible  text, 
surely — capable  of  extraordinary  suggestion  and 
amplification  : — "  Thou  hast  restrained  prayer  before 
God."  Meantime  not  a  word  was  heard ;  we 
stretched  our  neck,  we  strained  our  ear— not  a  word  : 
the  babbling  of  a  far-off  brook  among  the  moun- 
tains, the  drowsy  hum  of  a  hive  of  bees  at  evening 
time,  so  it  seemed  to  us ;  and,  like  other  drowsy 
sounds,  it  had  the  effect  of  putting  us  to  sleep.  We 
had  been  up,  hard  at  work  writing,  the  greater  part 
of  the  previous  evenings  and  but  for  this,  had  now 
perhaps  been  wending  our  way  home  ;  and  now  this, 
— a  crowded  place,  a  comfortable  cushion,  a  nice 
corner, —  a  distant  part  of  the  chapel,  out  of  sight, — 
an  exhausted  frame, — oh,  demure  brother,  could  even 
thy  superior  genius  have  withstood  the  influence  of 
such  poppies  .-• 


J^AMES  PARSONS.  265 


Not  long — surely  not  more  than  a  nap — but  what 
a  change  !  We  woke  as  the  whole  of  the  vast  con- 
gregation, stirred  by  the  power  of  the  orator,  hung 
dread  and  breathless  upon  one  of  the  most  effective, 
touching,  and  forcible  passages  within  the  compass 
even  of  his  oratory — "  The  curtains  of  hell  had  been 
drawn  aside  by  the  hand,  not  of  prophet,  nor  apostle, 
nor  seer,  but  by  the  Master  Himself."  The  preacher 
was  describing  the  unanswered  prayer  offered  in  hell. 
We  can  never  forget  the  gaze  of  his  eye.  Even  at 
that  distance  it  kindled  over  us ;  there  was  mes- 
merism in  it.  No  longer  hesitating  and  trembling, 
but  fixed  ;  and  the  words,  the  intonation,  strange, 
like  no  earthly  tone  we  had  ever  heard  ;  low,  yet 
most  audible,  not  so  much  from  any  exertion  of 
force,  as  from  the  deep  stillness.  Every  cough  sub- 
dued, every  sob  suspended,  until  at  last  the  climax 
was  reached,  and  the  preacher  relieved  at  once  him- 
self and  the  people  by  a  pause  ;  but  the  voice  itself 
— a  most  unnatural  voice, — the  cadences  of  wailing 
winds  were  scarce  more  mournful  ;  the  words  sighed 
themselves  forth  ;  the  tone  was  one  pre-eminently 
of  subdued  emotion  ;  it  was  as  if  the  spirit  over- 
flowed with  pathos  and  with  pity,  as  if  every  chord  of 
the  heart  were  capable  of  deep  response  and  pas- 
sionate entreaty,  but  all  reined  in  and  controlled  by  a 
commanding  resolution.  Meantime  our  absorption 
and  self-abandonment  were  complete.  During  the 
time  we  listened,  oblivion  of  all  beside  the  tremendous 
words  seized  the  hearer  ;  it  was  a  suspension  of  the 
functions  of  thought,  a  captivity  the  most  perfect 
to  the  enchainment  of  rapid  and  forcible  words  and 
images. 


266      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER 

James  Parsons  must  be  judged  by  those  days. 
Like  most  men  and  minds,  he  travelled  through 
three  eras.  There  was  the  day  of  young  conviction, 
when  his  heart  palpitated  with  passionate  earnestness, 
when  he  leaped  into  the  arena  full  of  energy  and 
zeal,  the  child  of  belief;  the  belief  giving  fire  and 
fervour  to  heart,  brain,  and  tongue.  In  those 
days  his  style  was  characterised  by  a  tropical  luxuri- 
ance of  discourse,  not  so  much  of  imagery  as  of 
utterance.  Language  did  not  so  much  flow  as  flash 
along.  The  climacteric  word — of  this  we  shall  give 
illustrations  presently — like  a  rock  or  break,  gave  a 
force  to  the  rapid  water  which  it  could  not  otherwise 
have  attained.  With  years  came  a  more  subdued 
style.  Reading  gave  a  more  finished  polish  to  the 
diction  ;  the  imagery  hung  more  chastely  over  the 
language,  yet  still  ample,  still  affluent,  and  men  of  a 
more  precise  tone  of  mind  would  say  and  still  too 
luxuriant ;  and  it  was  the  period  of  transition.  Life 
had  deepened,  as  it  does  with  all  of  us,  into  a  more 
really  serious  and  tremendous  thing  than  even  in 
former  da}S.  This  was  the  least  hysterical  period 
of  Mr.  Parsons's  fame — it  was  the  most  legitimate. 
In  his  earlier  and  later  years  there  seemed  something 
too  much  of  the  paroxysmatic  style  of  discourse  :  in 
the  first  instance  arising  from  overbalanced  convic- 
tion ;  in  the  latter  days,  dare  we  say  most  respect- 
fully, from  inadequate  conviction  }  In  the  middle 
period  to  which  we  refer,  we  recognise  nothing 
strained  to  an  unnatural  degree ;  the  thought  and 
the  language,  as  they  ever  do  in  all  true  eloquence, 
balanced  harmoniously  together.  Referring  to  those 
times,  we  fi,nd  trophies  of  eloquence  of  signal  beauty 


JAMES  PARSONS.  267 


and  force.  We  have  seen  them  invested  in  their 
delivery  with  a  tragic  grandeur — the  impersonation 
— the  apostrophe — the  prosopopeia — complete.  The 
soul  held  mysterious  intercourse  with  the  voice;  and 
the  mastery  of  the  voice  was  wonderful. 

We  cannot  well  suppose  that  our  preacher  selected 
Massillon  for  his  model — the  plan  of  the  two  men, 
in  their  treatment  of  subjects,  is  so  essentially  dif- 
ferent ;  yet  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Parsons 
might  have  been  called  the  English  Massillon  ;  and 
in  the  volume  of  Sermons  published  beneath  his 
own  sanction,  and  with  all  the  advantages  of  his 
criticism,  there  are  many  passages,  and  some  sermons, 
which  may  safely  be  compared  with  the  best  per- 
formances of  the  French  bishop.  The  structure  of 
the  minds  of  the  two  men  was  in  some  points  alike : 
great  was  the  similarity  in  the  selection  of  their 
themes  ;  great  was  their  faith  in  terror  as  the  instru- 
ment of  conviction  and  conversion  :  in  other  points 
their  pulpit  methods  materially  differ.  The  French- 
man selected  a  text  having  reference  to  a  previously 
determined  subject ;  the  Englishman  selected  the 
subject  from  the  text,  and  his  preaching  was  always 
textual  ;  and  the  preacher  of  York  ought  to  have 
developed  over  the  whole  of  his  oratory  a  breadth  of 
judgment  and  compass  of  character  no  whit  inferior 
to  the  preacher  of  Clermont.  We  do  not  object  to 
the  preacher  that  his  power  or  flexibility  were  inferior, 
but  we  find  obviously  inferior  culture  and  inferior 
independence  of  speech,  and  especially  of  thought. 
As  orators,  had  Massillon  and  Parsons  preached  at 
Versailles  or  York  together,  we  scarcely  can  believe 
that  any  hearers  could  have  given  the  preference  to 


268      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

the  accomplished  Frenchman  ;  for,  obviously  enough, 
differences  are  not  preferences.  The  spell  of  Mas- 
sillon  over  the  hearts  of  his  hearers,  royal  or  provin- 
cial, was  indeed  mighty,  with  something,  indeed 
much,  of  the  same  appearance  in  the  pulpit  as 
that  of  Parsons — a  modest,  downcast,  furtive  glancing 
manner,  not  quite  free  from  the  affectation  which 
invariably  attends  diffident  and  bashful  men,  alto- 
gether relieved  from  violence  of  gesture  or  vehemence 
of  delivery,  quiet,  and,  presently,  perfectly  collected. 
Thus  we  see  immediately  the  faults  and  excellences 
of  our  preacher  ;  and  we  see,  too,  how  greatly  he 
is  indebted  to  his  voice  for  his  power,  aye,  as  much 
as  mountains  are  indebted  to  the  music  of  their 
echoes,  and  the  melody  and  the  enchantment  of  their 
mountain-streams.  His  preaching  is  eminently  objec- 
tive— it  deals  with  things  of  the  eyesight.  The 
comparison  with  Massillon  suggests  immediately  one 
great  difference.  The  mental  and  moral  dignity  of 
the  Frenchman  gave  his  whole  bearing  dignity. 
Dignity  Mr.  Parsons  pre-eminently  lacked,  and  those 
who  have  studied  his  style,  or  even  glanced  at  it,  will 
immediately  perceive  the  reason — it  is  because  there 
had  been  in  his  instance  no  introvisionary  life.  Mr. 
Parsons  had  not  thought  his  sermons  ;  he  only 
thought  out  a  text ;  he  appeared  to  dread  thought ; 
he  did  not  lead  a  life  of  mental  communion  ;  he 
knew  nothing  of  the  sophistries  of  the  understanding, 
and  therefore  he  knew  nothing  of  the  higher  moods 
of  faith  ;  he  shunned  all  modern  questions  ;  he  did 
not  attempt  to  understand  the  modern  form  of 
infidelity — its  subjective  or  experimental  form  ;  he 
lacked  the  dignity  of  Massillon,  because  he  did  not 


JAMES  PARSONS.  269 

preach  from  the  text,  "We  speak  that  we  do  know  ;" 
he  did  not  verify  the  appeal  which  Christianity  makes 
to  the  human  soul.  It  is  thought  which  invests  the 
preacher  with  real  dignity  ;  it  is  the  knowledge  of 
human  nature  which  pre-eminently  crowns  with 
success.  Humanly  speaking,  no  preacher  can,  in  the 
long  run,  be  greatly  successful  or  greatly  useful  who 
does  not  know  well  the  human  heart.  This  know- 
ledge can  only  be  obtained  from  the  study  of  our- 
selves. Massillon  spent  many  years  in  study  and 
retirement,  yet  he  knew  the  world  well.  He  was 
able,  in  a  wonderful  manner,  to  thread  his  way 
through  the  passions  of  men.  His  pictures  of 
mental  life  are  striking,  from  their  dramatic  reality. 
When  asked  how  he  should  know  the  world  so  wejl, 
who  had  lived  so  far  from  it,  he  replied,  "  I  have 
learned  to  draw  them  by  studying  myself."  Yes, 
this  descent  into  self  is  the  source  of  all  power. 
Our  knowledge  of  ourselves  is  the  gauge  of  our 
dominion  permanently  over  our  fellow-men.  It  gives 
vigour,  reality,  and  originality  to  thought,  and  pun- 
gency and  potency  to  utterance. 

The  life  of  the  modern  popular  preacher  is  quite 
inimical  to  this.  If  he  be  a  star,  he  must,  perforce, 
be  a  wandering  star.  It  is  a  most  unnatural  thing 
to  suppose  that  people  would  give,  in  support  of 
any  cause,  unless  served  beforehand  with  a  dish  of 
eloquence.  Thus,  for  the  popular  man,  there  is  an 
unending  life  of  excitement,  of ///^/«^,  and  dinnering, 
and  cold-collationing,  and  dejtihier-d-la-foicrcheiteing, 
and  of  suppering.  Contrary  to  the  instincts  of  his 
better  nature,  he  is  compelled  to  live  for  effect.  In 
his  preaching  there  is  eminent  danger  of  the  sacrifice 


270      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

of  usefulness  to  effect.  It  is  a  bad  thing  to  be 
treated  with  too  much  kindness  by  the  world.  We 
sink  from  manly  teachers  into  petted  and  spoiled 
children  ;  we  forget  our  mission.  Instead  of  vigorous 
counsellors,  we  sink  into  lackadaisical  ladies'  men. 
Instead  of  the  life  within  being  all  in  all,  all  in  all  is 
in  the  life  without.  The  fold  of  the  robe  upon  the 
shoulder,  the  speck  of  dust  upon  the  coat,  is  of  more 
importance  than  the  influence  of  a  thought  upon  the 
spirit,  or  the  weight  of  a  custom  upon  the  life.  All 
this  is  the  result  of  the  eloquent  sermon  system,  the 
pedestrianising  eloquence  with  which,  amongst  its 
other  gifts  and  graces,  our  age  also  is  favoured. 
And  a  life  passed  thus — and  this,  again  we  say,  is 
the  life  of  the  popular  preacher — must  prevent  the 
exercise  of  the  inner  faculties,  must  remove  also 
from  the  possibility  of  sympathising  with  the 
doubters,  who  are  struggling  through  roaring  seas,  if 
haply  they  may  find  the  sure  haven  of  a  faith. 

But  we  will  confess  it  at  once,  there  is  a  genius,  a 
style  of  preaching,  which  we  conceive  to  be  of  a  dan- 
gerous kind.  Forcible  preaching  is  most  dangerous 
if  the  force  be  expended  upon  one  theme — one  topic. 
As  the  finger  that  sweeps  the  harp,  and  evokes 
music  from  the  chords,  is  itself  most  callous,  notwith- 
standing the  impressions  it  produces,  as  it  is  seared 
and  hardened  by  the  efforts  it  has  made  to  attain 
excellence,  so  frequently,  it  must  happen  that  the 
heart  of  the  preacher  is  untouched  amidst  all  the 
affecting  descriptions  and  appeals  which  shake  the 
souls  of  his  auditors.  To  others  they  are  fresh  and 
new,  to  him  they  are  common-place  ;  and  to  him 
they   become   common-place   in    proportion    to    the 


JAMES  PARSONS,  zji 

frequency  of  their  repetition  ;  for  advancing  souls 
do  not  repeat  themselves — and  this  constitutes  the 
great  danger  of  the  utterance  of  any  moral  senti- 
ment, or  Christian  sentiment,  which  either  has  not 
been,  or  is  not  immediately  practised.  And  the  same 
thing  must  be  said,  not  only  of  the '  utterance  of 
such  sentiments,  but  the  hearing  of  them — even 
this,  that  our  faith  becomes  proportionably  faint  as 
we  listen  to  the  repetition  of  what  we  do  not  believe  ; 
and  our  moral  character  becomes  dead  as  we  utter 
the  moral  precepts  we  do  not  practise.  The  mis- 
chief of  this  style  of  preaching,  as  of  all  styles 
purely  rhetorical,  or  oratorical,  is,  that  it  always 
walks  on  stilts.  If  the  preacher  would  be  a  teacher ; 
if  he  would  enlarge  the  mind,  communicate  instruc- 
tion, infuse  new  ideas  ; — if,  like  Socrates  among  the 
Athenians,  and  our  Divine  Lord  among  the  Jews,  he 
would  walk  among  the  people,  and  show  how  much 
the  public  instructor  is  of  the  people;  if  he  would 
be,  and  do  these  things,  then  the  modern  style — the 
stilted  style — the  rhetorical  style,  has  signally, 
remarkably,  failed.  Beyond  all  things  this  great 
lesson  should  be  taught  the  young  preacher, — 
"  Clothe  thyself  with  earnestness  as  with  a  garment !  " 
— earnestness  developing  itself  by  its  strong  sym- 
pathy, by  its  entire  individuality.  Beware,  we 
might  well  say,  of  inculcating  a  piety  from  the 
pulpit  you  do  not  intend  to  realise  in  the  parlour! 
Better  that  the  piety  of  your  pulpit  be  of  a  lozu 
order,  than  that  it  be  higher  than  the  piety  of  your 
every-day  life.  Scepticism  will  be  saved  the  oppor- 
tunity of  many  a  sneer  so  long  as  the  teachers  of 
Christianity    are   whole-hearted,  whole-bodied  men. 


272      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Now,  our  objection  to  the  pulpit  method  of  Mr. 
Parsons  is,  that  it  was — and  we  say  it  with  the 
sincerest  deference  and  respect  for  his  memory — 
one-sided.  It  was  not  equable  in  its  flow  ;  it  was 
segmental  Christianity  ;  it  was  not  circumferential. 
In  Massillori,  whom  we  have  mentioned  so  often, 
the  same  tremendous  characterisation  obtains.  In 
the  sermons  of  Jesus  the  terrors  of  the  Lord  are 
sparingly  introduced.  In  Massillon  and  Parsons 
they  form  the  staple  topic  of  discourse.  The 
sermons  of  our  Lord  produced  ineffable  love  and 
peace  in  believing.  These  sermons  produce  appal- 
ling terror  and  alarm.  Convictions  are  brief  in 
proportion  as  they  proceed  from  the  operation  of 
physical  causes  of  terror.  In  all  instances  vehemence 
of  manner  produces  very  short-lived  influences. 
Truth,  to  be  effective,  must  appeal  to  the  whole 
soul.  The  stature  of  Christian  manhood  is  only 
attained  that  way.  The  blow  is  felt,  but  it  pro- 
duces insensibility.  The  exercise  of  all  the  organs 
only  results  in  the  health  of  all. 

And  now  we  have  said  this  much  upon  this  style, 
not  only  of  one  of  the  most  popular  of  recent 
preachers,  but  the  most  popular  style  of  discourse 
also.  Certainly  most  people  seem  strangely  ena- 
moured with  it  ;  strangely  indisposed  to  preach  that 
"  God  is  love,"  and  to  believe  and  to  hear  that  God 
is  love  ;  and  so  we  have  hysterics,  and  agonies,  and 
thronging  multitudes  watching  for  the  advent  of  fire, 
and  feeling  considerably  satisfied  with  themselves, 
because  well  frightened.  Oh,  if  we  might  whisper  in 
the  ear  something  that  we  have  felt,  then  we  might 
say,  "  Good  Christian  people !  your  large  congrega- 


JAMES  PARSONS.  273 

tions  and  rapt  attention,  your  ecstatic  agony  and 
hysteric  terror,  are  not  very  complimentary  to  your- 
selves, your  preachers,  or  your  faith  !  Oh  !  have 
you  not  learned,  then,  that  the  powers  of  the  '  world 
to  come '  are  very  calm,  and  mi^^hty,  and  still,  within 
the  soul  ?  Do  you  not  know  that  terror  is  the  first 
and  lowest  round  in  the  ladder  by  which  we  ascend 
to  God  ?  And  yet  you  like  to  lie  and  live  ever 
there.  It  is  not  highly  complimentary  to  your 
Christian  taste,  one  should  think." 

But  it  yet  remains  to  say  something  upon  the 
more  distinctive  peculiarities  of  Parsons's  style  as  a 
mental  exercise.  The  most  prominent  feature  is 
the  climax,  and  here  he  stood  confessed  as  a  master. 
Not  that  his  climax  was  always  honest.  We  were 
forced,  sometimes,  to  see  the  trick  of  art.  The 
climaxes  of  Cicero  and  Burke  lie  concealed  ;  we  feel 
them,  we  do  not  see  them.  It  is  true  that,  with  Mr. 
Parsons,  we  frequently  saw  them,  but  did  not  always 
feel  them.  The  climax  was  frequently  merely 
verbal — a  word  selected  for  stronger  inflection  —  and 
in  this  the  name  of  his  imitators  is  Legion.  When 
merely  verbal,  there  is  danger  lest  the  climax 
degenerate  to  mere  claptrap.  In  its  noblest  form 
it  is  like  the  succession  of  the  tides,  when  every  tide 
is  mightier  and  more  impulsive  than  the  last,  each 
argument  more  conclusive,  each  expression  more 
muscular,  each  image  more  radiant.  The  power 
over  the  climax  develops  more  tact  than  genius,  yet 
it  is  frequently  the  most  efficient  portion  of  a  dis- 
course ;  and  when  it  is  judiciously  used,  it  is  far 
more  potent  over  an  audience  than  the  most  subtle 
eff"usions    of   genius.     It    is   artificial,   but   the   true 

18 


274      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

artist  conceals  his  art — the  bungler  displays  it.  We 
will  cite  an  illustration  of  the  concealed  climax,  from 
Massillon,  by  the  side  of  one  more  fully  displayed, 
from  Parsons: — 

"  I  figure  to  myself  that  our  last  hour  is  come !  The 
heavens  are  opening  over  our  heads !  Time  is  no  more, 
and  eternity  is  begun.  Jesus  Christ,  in  His  glory,  is  about 
to  appear  in  His  temple,  to  judge  us  according  to  our 
deserts  ;  and,  as  trembling  criminals,  we  are  here,  waiting 
at  His  hands  the  sentence  of  everlasting  life  or  everlasting 
death.  I  ask  you  now,  stricken  with  terror,  and  in  no  wise 
separating  my  lot  from  yours,  but  placing  myself  in  the 
situation  in  which  we  must  all  one  day  appear  before  God 
in  judgment — if  Christ,  I  ask,  were  at  this  moment  to 
appear  in  this  temple,  to  make  the  awful  partition  between 
the  just  and  the  unjust,  think  you  that  the  greater  number 
would  stand  at  His  right  hand?  Do  you  believe  that 
numbers  even  would  be  equal?  Would  ten  righteous 
persons — such  as  were  not  in  the  doomed  Cities  of  the  Plain 
— be  found  amongst  us?  Nay,  should  we  find  a  single 
one  ?  I  know  not ;  you  know  not !  Oh  !  my  God !  Thou 
alone  canst  tell  who  are  Thine  and  who  are  not !  Divide 
this  assembly  as  it  shall  be  divided  at  the  last  day  !  Stand 
forth  now,  ye  righteous  ! — where  are  you  ?  Chosen  of  God, 
separate  yourselves  from  the  multitude  doomed  to  destruc- 
tion. Oh,  God !  where  are  Thine  elect  ?  what  remains  as 
Thy  portion  ?  " 

The  good  bishop  suffers  from  translation  ;  who 
does  not  ?  The  following  is  a  perfect  specimen  of 
Mr.  Parsons's  method  in  dealing  with  the  climax. 
The  reader  will  note  the  relative  vehemence  of  the 
defiances  ;  he  will  not  fail  to  conceive  the  brilliancy 
of  the  eye,  alternately  raised  and  depressed,  the  hand 


JAAIES  PARSONS.  zjs 


gently  raised  and  clenched,  and  the  voice  trembling 
beneath  the  weight  of  subdued  passion  and  emotion. 

"  One  thing  alone  is  required, — that  you  should  ascertain 
your  interest  in  Christ,  and  have  the  witness  of  the  Spirit 
with  your  spirits  that  you  are  the  children  of  God;  and 
when  that  is  done,  all  is  done,  and  Death  is  to  be  feared 
no  more.  No,  my  brethren ;  then  shall  you  look  him  in  the 
face  as  he  comes  with  the  heavy  tramp  of  malignant  fury  to 
strike  you  down,  and,  as  the  dart  gleams  in  his  uplifted 
hand,  bare  your  bosom  for  the  blow,  and  exclaim,  *  Strike  ! 
I  fear  thee  not ; — strike  !  thou  art  conquered  ; — strike  ! 
thou  art  but  the  last  commissioned  messenger  of  mercy  to 
herald  me  to  my  Lord  ; — strike  ! ' —  and  as  the  framework 
of  clay  falls  beneath  the  blow  which  you  invite,  your  last 
song  of  tremulous  triumph  shall  be,  '  Fall  !  fall  !  fall  ! 
frail  mansion  !  for  I  know  that  when  the  earthly  house  of 
this  tabernacle  shall  be  dissolved,  I  have  a  building  of  God, 
a  house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens.' " 

This  climax  rings  upon  the  ear  like  an  echo; 
like  a  refrain  in  a  song,  we  know  that  it  will  come 
but  we  listen  for  it,  and  hope  to  hear  it  fall  of 
our  charmed  senses.  Do  our  readers  know  that 
sweet  melody  of  Arthur  Cleveland  Coxe,  the  Ameri- 
can poet,  which  in  its  structure  is  so  like  to  one  on 
our  preacher's  sermons  .'*      It  is  called 

"  THE  heart's  song. 

**  In  the  silent  midnight  watches, 

List — thy  bosom-door  ! 
How  it  knocketh, — knocketh, — KNOCKETH^ 

Knocketh  evermore ! 
Say  not  'tis  thy  pulse's  beating; 

*Tis  thy  heart  of  sin  : 
*Tis  thy  Saviour  knocks,  and  crieth, 

'  Rise,  and  let  Me  in  ! 


276      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

**  Death  comes  down  with  reckless  footstep 

To  the  hall  and  hut : 
Think  you  Death  will  stand  a-knocking 

Where  the  door  is  shut  ? 
Jesus  waiteth, — waiteth, — WAITETH  ; 

But  thy  door  is  fast ! 
Grieved,  away  thy  Saviour  goeth  : 

Death  breaks  in  at  last ! 

**  Then  'tis  thine  to  stand,  entreating 

Christ  to  let  thee  in, 
At  the  gate  of  heaven  beating, 

Wailing  for  thy  sin. 
Nay,  alas  !  thou  foolish  virgin, 

Hast  thou  then  forgot  ? 
Jesus  waited  long  to  know  thee. 

Now  He  knows  thee  not ! " 

True  pulpit  eloquence — nay,  all  true  eloquence — 
should  possess  a  large  portion  of  the  lyrical  element ; 
it  should  combine  drama,  anthem,  and  song. 

But  we  must  present  our  readers  with  one  or  two 
specimens  of  Mr.  Parsons's  more  continuous  manner. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  following  citation  : — 

"  HEAVEN. 

"And  truly  there  is  nothing  which  should  keep  your 
desires  from  heaven.  No  !  not  that  delightful  circle  of 
home,  where  the  parent's  eye  may  glisten  as  he  looks  upon 
his  child,  and  the  child  may  smile  with  joy  because  it  gazes 
on  its  father,  or,  more  loving  still,  when  it  looks  upon  its 
mother;  there  is  nought  even  there  which  can  abstract 
the  desires  from  heaven,  and  the  only  modification  of  that 
desire  should  be  that  children  and  parents,  and  brethren 
and  sisters,  should  all  meet  in  heaven.  No — there  is 
nothing  ;  when  here  we  meet  round  the  Table  of  the  Lord, 
and  Christian  comes  by  Christian  to  taste  the  bread  and 
wine,  which  '  show  forth  the  Lord's  death  till  He  come  ' — 


JAMES  PARSONS.  a;; 

till  we  all  meet  as  by  one  electric  imoulse  upon  the  spirit; 
till  we  all  blend  together  in  one,  '  being  members  of  His 
body,  and  His  flesh,  and  His  bone,'  there  is  nothing  here 
that  can  abstract  the  desires  from  heaven  ;  the  only  modifi- 
cation of  that  desire  must  be  that  those  that  break  the 
bread  and  drink  the  wine  may  have  fulfilled  at  last  the 
glorious  promise — '  Verily,  I  will  no  more  taste  of  the  fruit 
of  the  vine  until  that  day  when  I  drink  it  new  with  you  in 
My  Father's  kingdom.'  Onward  and  onward  still,  from 
year  to  year,  and  from  day  to  day,  must  the  Christian  spirit 
press  in  its  desire  towards  heaven.  It  will  be,  my  brethren, 
but  a  little  longer,  and  then  that  desire  shall  be  fulfilled,  and 
mortality  will  be  swallowed  up  in  life.  The  portal  shall  be 
entered,  and  the  spirit  shall  gaze  round  on  the  wonders 
of  its  completed  salvation.  What  pearly  gates  are  these  ? 
What  jasper  walls  are  these?  .  What  golden  streets  are 
these?  What  splendid  palaces  zxt  these?  What  immortal 
trees  are  these?  What  crystal  streams  are  these?  What 
amaranthine  bowers  are  these?  These  are  the  spirits  of  the 
just ;  and  I  see'  my  parents,  my  partner,  and  my  children, 
and  they  beckon  to  the  entrance.  There  is  Jesus,  whom 
my  soul  hath  loved,  and  now  I  behold  Him  with  the  glory 
of  His  Godhead.  And  there  is  the  overshadowing  splendour 
of  everlasting  happiness,  which  breathes  blessings  on  all 
beneath  it.  And  this,  this  is  heaven !  Earth,  I  have 
nothing  to  do  with  thee — with  thy  dull  days  and  thy  nights 
of  darkness  !  I  have  left  thee,  with  thy  storms  and  tempests  ; 
I  have  left  thee,  with  thy  distressing  temptations  and  thy 
polluting  scenes ;  I  have  left  thee,  with  thy  sorrows, 
thy  bereavements,  thy  diseases,  and  thy  destinies.  This, 
this  is  heaven  !  Am  I  come  there  ?  Then  redemption  and 
immortality  are  mine.  Oh,  brethren,  in  the  body  or  out  of 
the  body,  can  we  tell?  Have  not  your  desires  expanded 
and  extended  till  even  now  you  listen  to  the  song,  and 
inhale  the  atmospheres  of  heaven  ?  We  must  come  back 
again  to  earth,  till  the  will  of  God  remove  us ;  but  as  we 


278      THE   VOCATION  OF  'I HE  PREACHER. 


descend  to  the  world  of  morta'ity,  and  of  sorrow,  and  of 
sin,  in  which  we  must  breathe  a  little  longer,  we  cannot  but 
seiirl  our  desires  to  Him  who  has  gone  before  us,  '  When 
shall  I  come  and  appear  before  God?'  'Oh  th^it  I  had  the 
wings  ot  a  dove  !  then  would  I  flee  away,  and  be  at  rest ! ' " 

The  sermons  of  Mr,  Parsons  did  not  display  the 
imaginative  faculty,  which  is  the  concentrating,  or, 
as  Coleridge  finely  calls  it,  the  esemplastic  power, 
but  they  display  fancy,  which  is  the  grouping  power. 
He  did  not  select  one  image,  and  let  it  do  its  work. 
He  did  not  embody  and  clothe  a  colossal  idea, 
draping  it  round  with  appropriate  language,  or  leaving 
it  undressed,  to  win  and  awe  the  hearts  of  the 
people.  Like  all  men  of  mere  talent,  he  walked  not 
unfrequently  a  circuitous  path  to  convey  his  fancy  to 
the  mind.  He  gave  you  his  gold  in  the  form  of 
leaf,  not  ore.  The  one  bold  image  did  not  blaze 
over  the  mind  ;  and  the  redundancy,  in  reading  the 
sermon,  not  unfrequently  palled  upon  you  ;  but  this 
was  not  the  case  in  hearing  it.  An  affluent  stream  of 
images,  uttered  in  quick  succession,  attaches  the  mind 
so  much  more  forcibly  when  uttered  than  when  read. 
The  mind  must  be  steeped  in  bewilderment,  dazzled 
by  rapidly  glancing  beams.  It  is  only  the  higher 
order  of  oratory  that  will  bear  the  microscope  of 
meditation.  Oratory  like  that  of  Jeremy  Taylor  or 
Edmund  Burke  is  at  once  lofty  poetry  and  pro- 
found philosophy.  The  following  may  serve  as 
illustrating  Mr.  Parsons's  power  in  binding  figures 
together  : — 

"  DEATH. 

"We  cannot  form  any  idea  of  that  state  of  existence  in 
which  the  process  and  power  of  death  shall  be  unknown. 


JAMES  PARSONS.  279 


When  we  look  around  us  now,  we  cannot  perceive  an 
object  in  which  death  is  not  to  be  found.  Every  inspiration 
of  every  breath  tells  of  death;  every  throbbing  of  every 
heart  tells  of  death  ;  every  beating  of  every  pulse  tells  of 
death;  every  period  of  life  tells  of  death.  Death  not  only 
appears  in  the  snows  that  have  been  scattered  upon  the 
head  of  age,  but  it  appears  in  the  brightness  that  flashes  in 
the  eye  of  infancy,  and  in  the  tinge  that  lights  up  with 
beauty  the  cheek  of  youth.  Death  is  in  all  the  seasons 
— in  the  showers  of  spring,  in  the  sunbeams  of  summer,  in 
the  ripeness  of  the  autumn,  in  the  storms  and  blasts  of 
winter.  He  is  in  the  cloud,  and  in  the  sky,  and  he  is  in  the 
mountain,  and  in  the  valley.  He  is  in  the  grass  that  clothes 
the  fields  with  verdure,  and  in  the  lovely  flowers  that  seem 
the  very  elements  and  emblems  of  beauty  and  perfection. 
There  is  not  a  motion,  there  is  not  an  object,  there  is  not  a 
sphere,  there  is  not  an  event  which  does  not  tell  of  Death. 
He  comes  forth  from  behind  the  veil,  where  he  perhaps  may 
have  enshrined  himself  in  a  mask,  and  while  we  are  gazing 
around  us,  he  stamps  his  foot  upon  the  territory  of  the 
material  universe,  and,  waving  all  around  it  his  dread  ebon 
sceptre,  proclaims  in  a  voice  of  thunder  : — '  All  this  is 
MINE  ! '  and  none  can  gainsay  nor  deny." 

And  yet  another  extract,  in  his  best  and  most 
sustained  manner,  on  the  same  fruitful  theme  of 
Death, — a  favourite  one  with  Mr.   Parsons. 

**  All  the  demands  and  characteristics  which  are  applied 
to  the  Christian  in  the  present  state  of  existence  are  those 
of  toil  and  labour.  For  example,  we  are  to  walk,  we  are  to 
run,  we  are  to  plant,  we  are  to  reap,  we  are  to  watch,  we  are 
to  wrestle,  we  are  to  fly,  we  are  to  press  forward.  Whether 
we  occupy  the  more  public  and  honoured  stations  which 
belong  to  the  Church  of  Christ,  or  whether  we  exist  in  more 
ordinary  and  less  responsible  stations,  we  all  know  that  ours 


28o      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

is  a  hard  and  toilsome  course.  The  task  of  resisting  the 
propensity  of  indwelling  sin ;  the  task  of  enduring  the 
various  afflictive  dispensations  which  are  imposed  upon  us  by 
Divine  Providence ;  the  task  of  bearing  the  obloquy,  the 
scorn  and  derision,  in  various  forms,  of  ungodly  men  ;  the 
task  of  contending  against  the  powers  of  darkness  ;  the  task 
of  acquiring  the  high  and  ultimate  attainments  of  Christian 
knowledge  and  Christian  holiness  ;  and  the  task  of  attempt- 
ing to  diffuse,  against  the  prejudices  and  depravity  of  men, 
the  kingdom  of  the  Redeemer  even  unto  the  ends  of  the 
earth  :  these  constitute  our  work,  a  work  which  we  are  to  do 
with  all  our  might,  and  except  we  do  it,  we  cannot  work  out 
our  own  salvation,  nor  rightly  honour  that  Redeemer  whom 
we  profess  to  serve.  Now,  when  we  have  finished,  as  hire- 
lings, our  day,  when  we  die,  or  when  we  sleep  in  Jesus,  it  is 
like  going  to  rest ;  the  body  rests  in  its  grave,  the  soul  rests 
in  the  paradise  of  the  Lord,  surrounded  by  the  elements  of 
a  sweet  and  balmy  tranquillity  that  cannot  be  ruffled  nor 
disturbed.  Are  we  labourers  ?  Then  we  leave  the  field  and 
lay  down  the  implements  of  our  husbandry.  Are  we 
travellers!  Then  we  terminate  our  long  and  wearisome 
journey,  and  cross  the  threshold  of  our  Father's  mansion. 
Are  we  soldiers  ?  Then  we  take  off  the  helmet,  and  the 
corslet,  and  the  entire  panoply  of  war,  and  lay  down  the 
weapons  of  defence  or  of  assault — the  spear,  the  shield,  and 
the  sword.  Are  we  manners?  Then  we  heave  over  the 
last  ocean-billow,  and  enter  into  the  desired  haven.  The 
sleep  of  the  labouring  man  is  sweet ;  and  oh  !  how  sweet  is 
the  slumber  and  Lst  repose  of  those  who  have  believed  in 
Jesus,  and  who  have  wrought  for  God  I  No  suffering,  no 
cares,  no  uneasy  recollection  nor  .foreboding  anticipations  to 
disturb  thtre ;  no  appalling  dreams  there,  no  irksome  and 
unhealthy  nightmare  to  spoil  or  mar  ///a/ placid  rest.  Every 
jarring  noise  is  hushed ; — the  winds  are  still ; — no  heavy 
tread, — no  loud  tramp, — no  awakening  roar, — no  trumpet- 
sound  startles : — all  nature  pays  the  deference  and  tribute  of 


yAMES  PARSONS.  281 

silence  whilst  the  Christian  sleeps.  '  They  enter  into  peace, 
and  they  rest  in  their  beds,  each  one  who  has  walked  in  his 
uprightness.'  '  There  remaineth,  therefore,  a  rest  for  the 
people  of  God.'  *  I  heard  a  voice  from  heaven  saying  unto 
me.  Write,  Blessed  are  the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord  from 
henceforth:  Yea,  saith  the  Spirit,  that  they  may  rest  from  their 
labours,  and  their  works  do  follow  them.'  How  happy,  my 
brethren,  for  you  and  for  me,  if  as  Christians  we  labour,  that 
as  Christians  we  shall  rest  when  we  shall  have  fallen  asleep  !  " 

We  may  present  one  other  illustration  taken  from 
Mr.  Parsons'  celebrated  sermon  before  the  London 
Missionary  Society,  in  the  year  1827,  when  he  was 
but  in  the  first  prime  of  his  manhood,  or  youth. 
The  extract  betrays  all  the  faults  of  his  style,  all 
its  rapidity,  its  excellence,  vehemence,  declamation 
appeal,  and  apostrophe. 

INVOCATION   TO    MISSIONARY   ARDOUR. 

"  Yet,  especially,  refer  to  the  examples  furnished  within 
the  Church  of  the  Saviour,  by  the  contemplation  of  which 
we  best  can  ascertain  the  character  of  our  own  day,  and  the 
station  after  which  we  ought  to  strive.  And  oh  !  how  far 
are  we  beneath  them  !  Will  you  think  of  Him— the  great 
Example — the  appointed  Pattern,  whose  steps  it  is  our  duty 
to  follow — who  came  down  from  heaven,  the  Messenger  of 
mercy — who  placed  before  Him  one  grand  object  from 
which  He  never  swerved — whose  meat  and  whose  drink  was 
to  do  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  Him,  and  who  gave  Himself 
in  entire  and  perfect  devotion  to  the  business  of  His  Father, 
and  for  the  redemption  of  mankind  ?  li'ill  you  think  of 
those  honoured  heralds  who  first  went  forth  at  the  command 
of  their  Lord— men  who,  for  Jehovah's  honour  and  the 
Saviour's  cross,  sacrificed  all  their  earthly  good,  and  were 
content  to  be  esteemed  'the  filth  and  oftscouring  of  all 


282      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

things  ' — men  who  laboured  with  unruffled  patience — men 
who  reared  the  monuments  of  their  diUgence,  and  the 
trophies  of  their  success,  in  many  cUmes  and  empires — men 
who  met  the  King  of  Terrors,  as  he  came  to  end  their 
career,  amidst  torture,  and  racks,  and  flames,  having  the 
sacred  name  of  their  Redeemer  as  a  charm  to  cheer  them, 
when  they  died,  with  the  certainty  of  an  immortal  triumph? 
Will  you  thhik  of  those  who  issued  forth  in  the  high  spirit  of 
reformation  to  awaken  a  slumbering  world,  and  braved  the 
angry  tempest  that  burst  upon  them,  amidst  the  thunders 
of  Antichrist,  though  they  themselves  should  be  crushed 
beneath  its  bolts  ?  Will  you  think  of  such  a  one  as  White- 
field,  the  fervour  of  whose  spirit,  and  the  extent  of  whose 
labours,  ha^'e  enshrined  his  memory  in  a  radiance  almost 
peculiar  and  alone  in  the  annals  of  the  faithful ;  and  of 
others  in  modern  times,  some  of  whom  have  fallen  asleep, 
and  some  of  whom  yet  live  to  work  for  Him  '  who  shall 
build  the  temple  of  the  Lord  and  bear  the  glory '  ?  Oh, 
yes !  there  are  those  before  us,  passing  as  in  a  procession 
of  splendid  array,  in  whose  presence  we  may  well  sink, 
confessing  our  insignificance — ashamed  of  our  misapplication 
and  indolence !  And  shall  we  not  arise  to  emulate  their 
virtues,  and  to  catch  a  portion  of  their  fire  ?  And  shall  we 
not  arise  to  seek  the  power  that  shall  lift  us  above  the 
elements  that  oppress  and  clog  our  progress,  and  strive,  in 
holy  ambition,  for  the  renown  of  sacrifice  and  ambition  ? 
And  shall  we  not  arise  and  follow  on,  in  noble,  chivalrous 
exertion,  which  shall  fight  for  the  cause  of  God  and  man, 
caring  nothing  for  the  monsters  of  the  moral  desert,  there 
breaking  the  fatal  spells  and  overturning  the  dark  enchant- 
ments of  hell,  and  giving  to  groaning  captives  the  emancipa- 
tion and  privilege  of  immortality  ?  Shades  of  the  departed, 
give  to  us  your  mantle  I  Spirit  of  the  living  God,  descend  thus 
upon  Thy  people  !  and  then  shall  the  Church  go  forth,  'fair 
as  the  moon,  and  clear  as  the  sun,  and  terrible  as  an  army 
with  banners  1 ' " 


JAMES  PARSONS.  283 

The  structure  of  Mr.  Parsons'  sermons  was,  how- 
ever, admirably  fitted  for  effective  preaching  ;  yet 
they  were  built  upon  a  plan  which  has  now  been 
very  much  laid  aside,  for  we  seem  to  have  outlived 
the  age  of  rhetoric,  but  for  one  or  two  not  very 
notible  exceptions  amongst  us  ;  in  the  sermons  of 
Mr.  Parsons  there  was  nothing  epigrammatic,  nothing 
terse  ;  very  frequently,  along  the  line  of  discourse, 
hints  occurred  showing  him  to  be  unacquainted 
neither  with  books  nor  thoughts.  But  the  object  of 
rhetoric  is  to  keep  the  mind  asleep,  the  feeling, 
intensely,  nervously  awake  ;  it  compels  all  its  powers 
to  charging  upon  the  conscience :  rhetoric  has 
especially  taken  out  a  retainer,  and  constitutes  itself 
a  special  pleader  for  the  cause  it  espouses.  Trained 
and  educated,  as  we  have  already  said,  for  the  law, 
no  preacher  whom  we  have  heard  spoke  more  like  a 
special  pleader  than  Mr.  Parsons  ;  all  his  sermons  are 
eminently  forensic  ;  he  talked  to  a  congregation  as  a 
barrister  addresses  a  jury  ;  he  only  knew  the  case  in 
hand,  he  never  allowed  himself  to  be  diverted  for  a 
moment  from  his  topic  ;  he  always  spoke  as  a  man  • 
might  who  was  determined  to  obtain  by  that  speech 
a  condemnation  or  an  acquittal.  The  method  of  the 
sermon,  its  arguments  and  illustrations,  all  bore  on  in 
a  straight  line ;  there  was  no  circular  sweep,  no 
glancing  hither  or  thither,  to  this  or  that  thought 
more  or  less  remote  from  the  matter  in  hand  ;  the 
chief  impression  was  not  permitted  to  be  weakened 
by  any  occasional  or  incidental  suggestions  ;  and  the 
most  perfect  affluence  of  poetical  or  fanciful  illustra- 
tions, or  the  heaping  together  of  texts,  was  all 
cumulative,  all  distinct  and  defined  ;  there   was   no 


284      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

wild  talk,  nor  wild  fire.  Abounding  himself, 
personally,  in  humour  and  anecdote,  we  suppose  no 
one  ever  heard  him  use  an  anecdote  in  the  pulpit, 
and  we  are  quite  certain  no  one  ever  heard 
him  indulge  in  the  remotest  or  most  transient  touch 
of  humour.  All  was  stately  and  sustained,  we  had 
almost  said  to  an  overstrained  pitch  of  intensity  ;  all 
bearing  the  mark  of  perfect  and  entire  consecration 
in  that  service,  but  all  characterised  by  such  harmony 
with  the  laws  of  rhetoric  as  to  compel  the  feeling 
that  the  preacher  was  a  perfect  artist, — we  of  course 
use  the  term  only  with  the  profoundest  respect, — in 
the  use  of  all  the  material  at  his  command.  We  intend 
no  disrespect  when  we  suppose  him  to  have  been  a 
disciple,  and  student  of  the  school  of  Blair ;  and,  for 
our  part,  we  will  be  bold  to  say,  we  think  it  would 
be  well  for  students  for  public  speech  if  they  took 
up,  and  studied  now  Blair's  almost  forgotten 
volumes.  The  mind  of  our  age  travels  in  a  dif- 
ferent line,  the  race  of  preachers  now  is  compelled 
to  altogether  a  different  method  ;  the  pulpit,  to  be 
successful,  must  be  the  whispering  gallery  for  all 
the  varied  thoughts  and  tribulations  of  our  day,  our 
troubled  and  multiform  age  ;  audiences  would,  we 
fancy,  become  impatient  of  long,  protracted,  stately 
discourses  ;  and,  in  the  memory  of  what  Mr.  Parsons 
was  in  his  highest  fame,  we  are  almost  disposed  to 
speak  of  him  as  the  last  of  the  pulpit  rhetoricians  ; 
but  we  must  remember  what  we  have  said  above  ;  the 
voice,  the  earnest  pathetic  voice,  full  of  intensity  and 
accent,  this,  we  suppose,  makes  every  method  power- 
ful in  our  own,  or  in  any  age. 

The  tendency,  and  perhaps  more  than  the  tendency, 


JAMES  PARSONS.  285 

the  practice,  in  our  times  is  to  the  disdainful 
disregard  of  all  rhetoric  as  mere  artifice  ;  it  is 
plausibly  said,  Throw  out  the  words  ;  let  them  take 
their  own  course,  and  go  their  own  way.  It  is 
admitted  that  there  may  be  too  great  an  attention 
to  the  mere  artifices  of  speech  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  may  be  a  most  foolish  forgetfulness  of  the  laws 
of  speech,  of  thought,  and  of  the  human  mind  ; 
great  singers  and  great  actors  are  what  they  are  as 
the  result,  not  merely  of  genius,  but  of  genius 
methodised  and  cultivated  ;  great  poets  have  usually 
been  great  artists  ;  nay,  the  more  cultivated  the  age 
the  greater  the  necessity  for  the  cultivation  of  art 
both  in  writing  and  in  speaking  ;  "  moreover,  the 
preacher  sought  out  acceptable  words,"  and  this 
constitutes  the  difference  between  mere  talk  and 
sustained  oratorical  power.  Are  poets,  painters, 
musicians  permitted  to  be  artists  }  why  should  not 
the  orator  be  so  also  "i  Should  the  artist  power  be 
entirely  renounced  by  the  preacher  .-*  Preachers  now 
often  deliver  from  the  pulpit  what  might  pass  for  a 
review,  for  a  leading  article  in  a  newspaper,  for  an 
epigrammatic  suggestive  essay  ;  but  all  these  are  as 
utterly  different,  in  their  idea  and  structure,  from  the 
sermon,  as  they  are  different  from  a  piece  of  music 
or  a  poem.  It  is  no  doubt  true  that  very  few  of  all 
the  men  who  preach  are  pre-eminently  fitted,  either 
by  nature  or  by  grace,  to  preach  ;  but  the  man  born 
to  be  a  preacher,  like  the  man  born  to  be  a  singer,  or 
poet,  or  painter,  will  be  the  man  of  all  others  most 
likely  to  deal  with  his  work  as  a  passion,  to  enjoy 
himself  in  it,  to  prepare  himself  for  it,  and  to  be 
wholly  dissatisfied   upless  he  shall  see  certain  effects 


286      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

flowing  from  it.  The  man  who  does  not  studi- 
ously and  carefully  prepare  for  his  public  ministra- 
tions, shows  by  his  negligence  he  was  not  intended 
for  a  preacher. 

But  neither  voice,  nor  rhetoric,  are  matter  ;  and  we 
believe  still  the  sermons  of  Mr.  Parsons  are  among 
the  very  finest  models  upon  which  a  successful 
ministry  may  frame  itself  Dean  Kirwan  was  one 
of  the  most  effective  preachers  of  his  time  ;  his 
audiences  were  immense,  his  pathos  overwhelming  ; 
but  no  one  can  take  down  his  sermons  now  with  any 
expectation  of  gaining  anything  from  them  ;  the  man 
is  gone,  and  all  is  gone  ;  this  is  far  different,  however, 
from  the  subject  of  our  present  sketch. 

It  was  a  curious  thing,  if  the  hearer  could  be 
amused  by  the  mere  curiosity,  to  notice  the  strange 
rapidity  with  which  Mr.  Parsons  was  wont,  in  search 
of  references,  to  turn  over  the  leaves  of  the  pulpit 
Bible.  An  element  of  his  power  assuredly  was  that 
he  was  "  mighty  in  the  Scriptures  ; "  Scriptural 
reference  always  formed  no  inconsiderable  portion 
in  the  composition  of  the  sermon,  and  every  general 
leading  statement  was  enforced  by  copious  Scrip- 
ture quotations  ;  very  frequently  these  were  wrought 
with  great  skill  into  the  structure  of  speech,  and 
made  very  effective  by  their  impassioned  connection. 

The  sermons  of  Mr.  Parsons  are  models  for  orderly 
thought  in  the  pulpit;  he  evidently  always  be- 
lieved, and  acted  upon  the  belief,  that  method  and 
arrangement  are  essential  to  true  effect  in  public 
speaking  ;  indeed,  rhetoric  implies  this.  The  more 
recent  method  in  the  pulpit  has  disdained  the  use  of 
divisions,  or   the   more   obvious  use   of  them  ;   Mr. 


JAMES  PARSONS.  287 

Parsons  tenaciously  held  to  the  plan  for  a  sermon, 
and  it  unquestionably  greatly  assists  both  preacher 
and  hearer;  nor  does  it  follow,  if  the  plan  be  adhered 
to,  that  it  should  be  commonplace  or  jejune  ;  it  is 
the  so-called  "natural,"  in  reality  the  almost  thought- 
less, division  of  a  text,  which  has  created  a  prejudice 
against  the  method  ;  this  must  greatly  assist  where 
the  preacher  preaches,  as  Mr.  Parsons,  we  believe, 
always  did,  entirely  from  the  memory  ; — who  ever 
saw  a  scrap  of  paper  on  his  Bible? — And,  we  suppose, 
whatever  instances  might  be  cited  to  the  contrary 
that  this  must  be  the  true  method  of  all  hortatory 
speech.  There  is  something  ludicrous  in  written 
declamation,  and  declamation  must  be  considered  as 
Mr.  Parsons'  especial  forte  and  power.  Even  the 
very  best  reading  cannot  atone  for  that  perfect 
freedom,  that  entire  self-possession,  especially  for 
the  power  to  fix  the  eye  at  will,  and  deal  as  if  in 
earnest  and  passionate  conversation  with  any  portion 
of  an  audience.  This  then  it  is  which  implies  close 
preparation  for  the  pulpit  ;  not  merely  writing  out 
a  sufficient  quantity  of  matter  to  occupy  the  forty 
minutes,  but  such  an  arrangement  of  the  matter  as 
shall  be  calculated  to  arrest  and  sustain  the  attention, 
such  a  disposition  of  words,  thoughts,  and  illustra- 
tions, as  shall  carry  the  mind  forward.  There  is  an 
art  in  preaching  ;  it  depends  certainly  upon  endow- 
ment, and  upon  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
upon  the  character  ;  but  it  would  indeed  be  absurd 
to  suppose  that  preaching  should  be  almost  the  only 
occupation  of  the  mind  of  man  which  does  not  im- 
pose the  tax  of  extraordinary  labour  for  its  adequate 
success ;   only,   as   we   have   already   intimated,   the 


288      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

labour  in  which  any  mind  indulges  illustrates  the 
passion  of  the  nature;  and  where  there  is  no  disposi- 
tion to  labour,  we  may  be  sure  neither  nature  nor 
grace  ever  intended  a  dedication  to  that  work. 

These  remarks  illustrate  what  Mr.  Parsons  was 
as  to  the  order,  method,  and  arrangement  of  his 
sermons  :  they  never  appeared  without  a  plan.  The 
frequent  brilliancy  of  his  sermons  was  admirably 
calculated  for  public  impression.  Brilliancy  is  surely 
permissible  in  the  pulpit ;  it  is  sinful,  indeed,  to 
enter  the  pulpit  with  the  intention  of  saying  fine 
things  ;  but  a  mind  delighting  in  the  imaginative,  or 
even  the  fanciful  aspects  of  things,  can  only  express 
itself  after  its  own  nature.  The  style  of  Mr.  Parsons 
in  the  pulpit  always  appeared  to  be  eminently  chaste. 
In  reading  it  may  seem  sometimes  as  if  the  orna- 
ment were  too  diffuse  ;  but  that  which  is  intolerable 
in  an  essay  becomes  very  necessary  in  a  sermon, 
where  it  is  almost  by  diffuseness  and  amplification 
that  the  preacher  wins  his  way  to  the  interests  and 
intentions  of  the  people  ;  and,  as  a  rule,  that  which 
is  most  effective  in  delivery  will  be  most  unfitted  for 
printing. 

Again,  the  perfect  stillness  of  Mr.  Parsons'  manner 
destroyed  all  possible  suspicion  of  exaggeration  ;  a 
calm  subdued  intensity  pervaded  the  whole  discourse, 
from  the  commencement  to  the  close  ;  a  nervous, 
even  hesitating,  shrinking  modesty  was  the  vehicle 
through  which  the  most  rapt  utterances,  the  most 
tremendous  denunciations,  and  the  most  vivid  decla- 
mation were  poured  ;  the  whole  manner  was  one  of 
serious  absorption  in  the  subject,  and  it  became 
infectious,  and  the  people  caught  intensity  from  the 


JAMES  PARSONS.  289 


nervous,  tremulous,  and  conscious  speaker.  Few 
preachers  have  cultivated  that  subdued  and  pro- 
foundly conscious  tone  of  conviction  ;  yet  perhaps 
it  is  the  only  tone  which  strikes  deeply  down  to 
the  profoundest  roots  of  the  soul.  Hence,  amidst 
the  torrents  and  whirlwinds  which  sometimes  seemed 
let  loose  in  some  of  the  higher  moods  of  the  preacher, 
and  amidst  all  his  most  splendid  coruscations,  there 
seemed  a  mild  soft  light,  like  the  gentle  splendour 
along  the  horizon  as  the  storm  marches,  over  the 
traveller's  head,  upon  its  way.  The  brilliancy  of 
our  modern  days  is  spar-like,  angular ;  it  flashes,  for 
the  most  part,  in  sharp  suggestiveness,  or  in  distinctly 
wrought  painting ;  it  is  the  result  of  intense  and 
sleepless  activity  of  thought ;  it  is  thought/?^/.  We 
suppose  in  all  ages  the  poet  and  the  preacher  are 
the  brethren,  the  twins,  the  counterparts  of  the  time. 
Apply  the  test  for  three  hundred  years  past,  it  will 
be  found  to  be  so:  the  age  of  Milton  was  the  age 
of  Taylor,  of  Barrow  ;  the  age  of  Pope  was  the  age 
of  Sterne  ;  the  age  of  Thomson  was  that  of  James 
Hervey.  In  the  earlier  period  of  Mr.  Parsons' 
career  it  is  impossible  not  to  trace  a  strong  sympathy 
with  the  vehement  and  passionate  expressions  of 
Byron  ;  the  structure  of  his  appeals,  the  agonistic 
intensity  of  the  strained  expression,  often  remind  us 
of  Pollok  ;  while  the  thick-crowding  fancies,  which 
are  frequently  heaped  together  with  no  unchaste, 
although  with  so  affluent  a  hand,  remind  us  of  Mrs. 
Hemans,  in  her  power  of  amplifying,  and  spreading 
out  suggestions  over  a  subject. 

The  modern  method  is   the   reverse   of  all  this  : 
compact,  compressed,  sharp,  and  forcible.     It  must 

19 


290      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

be,  we  think,  admitted  that,  even  with  adequate 
powers  of  mind,  this  latter  method  is  not  the 
most  calculated  for  public  impression  and  usefulness. 
Audiences  usually  consist  of  a  very  average  order  of 
mind,  and  assuredly  there  is  danger  in  over-estimating 
rather  than  in  underrating  their  mental  powers.  It 
has  been  truly  said,  "  There  are  hearers  among  all 
communions  who  love  the  twilight  order  of  instruc- 
tion, and  who,  having  no  great  regard  to  knowledge 
for  its  own  sake,  appear  half  indignant  at  being  told 
anything  they  did  not  know  before,  and  would  have 
a  universe  of  minds  reduced  as  nearly  as  possible  to 
their  own  level  ;  these  men,  stationary  as  bulrushes 
on  the  borders  of  a  stagnant  pool,  which  is  all  the 
world  to  them,  would  not  have  the  waveless  calm 
disturbed  by  a  single  breath."*  A  mild,  diffused 
luminousness,  therefore,  rather  expresses  the  true 
idea  of  pulpit  splendour  ;  the  people  will  not  bear 
too  much  thought ;  "  the  line  must  be  upon  line, 
and  the  precept  upon  precept,  here  a  little  and  there 
a  little  ; "  and  he  will,  in  general,  be  the  most  suc- 
cessful preacher  who  lulls  and  soothes  rather  than 
astonishes,  and  who  adroitly  uses  that  which  the 
people  already  know,  rather  than  carry  them  for- 
ward to  unexplored  mines,  or  mountain  passes,  or 
untrodden  fields  of  thought.  He  who  adopts  a 
reverse  course  to  this  may  serve  his  Master,  and 
receive  his  crown,  and  gather  the  gratitude  of  the 
select  and  affectionate  few ;  but  he  will  pay  the 
penalty  in  a  small  audience  and  a  very  limited  range 

*  This  quotation  is  from  a  very  able  review  of  Mr.  Parsons' 
published  volume  of  sermons,  in  the  Congregational Magazitie 
for  1831. 


JAMES  PARSONS.  291 

of  usefulness.  How  can  it  be  otherwise  ?  the  thou- 
sands, or  the  mihions,  are  neither  largely  read,  nor 
highly  cultured  ;  at  the  best,  they  are  serious  people, 
with  minds  well  disposed  towards  religious  truth  ; 
the  preacher  must  make  his  most  of  this  ;  that  he 
does  not  make  the  most  of  this  is  perhaps  the  serious 
fault  of  the  modern  pulpit  ;  that  he  has  made  the 
most  of  this  is  the  honour  of  Mr.  Parsons.  But 
hence  it  is  that  where  thought  and  scholarship  fail, 
feeling,  emotion,  are  triumphant  and  successful  ; 
these  are  the  strings  upon  which  so  iis^w  play,  or 
can  play  ;  the  brilliant  thought,  the  felicitous  ex- 
pression, the  happy  allusion,  all  admirable  in  them- 
selves, miss  the  audience  ;  the  affecting  incident,  the 
impassioned  appeal,  the  natural  description,  these,  all 
are  able  to  appreciate,  and  these,  not  only  usually 
tell,  but  they  affect  and  influence  character.  So  far 
as  the  drapery  of  the  sermon  is  the  subject  of 
remark,  it  is  in  these  we  are  to  notice  at  once  a 
chief  excellency  of  Mr.  Parsons  and  a  very  cha- 
racteristic illustration  of  his  genius. 

For  the  most  part  his  sermons  comprise  generali- 
sations, grand  views  of  truth  ;  his  fame  was  achieved 
in  a  day  when  the  preacher  was  permitted,  by 
almost  all  hearers,  to  take  much  for  granted  ;  the 
subtle  refinements  of  modern  casuistry  were  not 
generally  operating  ;  unbelief,  where  it  existed,  was 
a  bold  habit  of  indifference  ;  it  had  not  employed 
itself  upon  the  millionfold  nice  scepticisms  and 
critical  questions  which  now  are  the  exercises  of  all 
orders  of  minds  ;  perhaps  feeling  was  more  easily 
roused,  and  topics  of  thought,  which  now  produce 
only  a  cold  and  callous  look  or  sneer,  were  not  then 


292      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

devoid  of  power  to  awaken  emotion.  Hence  such 
appeals  as  the  following  would  not  be  inadequate  to 
awaken  impression. 

"SATAN   AND   THE   SAVIOUR   IN   CONFLICT   FOR   MAN's   SOUL. 

"  Some  of  you  may  perhaps  have  seen  a  work  of  art  in 
which,  almost  as  with  a  magic  pencil,  the  painter  has  por- 
trayed a  scene — Satan  playing  with  a  man  for  his  soul.  What 
a  scene  for  the  limner  is  before  us  now  !  And  had  we  the 
strength  of  Angelo,  or  the  genius  of  Raffaelle,  where  still  is 
the  hand  that  dare  dip  the  colour,  or  spread  and  fill  the 
canvas  ?  Christ  and  Satan  in  conflict  for  the  soul  of  man  ! — 
and  for  yours !  It  is  not  drama ;  it  is  truth :  it  is  not 
pictorial  ;  it  is  real  :  and  the  conflict  is  acting  now.  Here 
stands  the  spirit  of  evil ;  on  his  brow  the  thunder  scar  is 
graven  ;  his  eyes  blaze  with  the  immortahty  of  hell ;  and  he 
seeks  to  retain  the  tenacity  of  his  grasp  on  the  spirit  he 
would  destroy.  There  stands  the  Prince  of  peace,  in  gar- 
ments of  light  and  majesty,  a  crown  upon  His  head,  but 
tenderness  and  love  in  His  eye ;  and  He  pleads  and 
stretches  out  His  hand  ;  and  as  it  is  held  out  before  you  in 
the  attitude  of  entreaty,  you  see  the  print  of  the  nails  which 
passed  through  Him  in  agony  when  He  hung  upon  the 
cross,  that  by  His  blood  you  might  be  redeemed.  While 
one  asks  for  your  ruin,  the  Other  weeps  as  He  tenderly 
pleads  for  your  redemption.  And  which  will  you  accept  ? 
Christ  has  come  to  your  heart,  and  He  is  knocking  at  the 
door  of  the  palace ;  and  you  hear  His  voice — '  Behold,  I 
stand  at  the  door,  and  knock ;  if  any  man  hear  My  voice, 
and  open  the  door,  I  will  come  in  to  him,  and  will  sup  with 
him,  and  he  with  Me.'  'I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock!' 
And  now  hearken  !  In  this  silence  is  the  Saviour  pleading 
again  ;  and  if  there  be  a  throbbing,  palpitating  heart,  it  is  the 
vibration  of  that  heart  before  the  Saviour's  knock,  when  He 
asks  you  to  open." 


JAMES  PARSONS.  293 

Or  the  reader  may  take  the  following  as  well 
calculated  to  arouse  and  arrest  the  mind  of  a  hearer, 
especially  when  delivered  with  all  the  preacher's 
inimitable  emphasis. 

"think  how  noble  is  your  existence. 

" Think  how  noble  is  your  existence;  think  how  solemn 
is  your  existence.  Think  how  noble  is  your  existence. 
You  are  not  the  mean  and  paltry  thing  which  vulgar 
infidelity  would  have  you  regard  yourself:  the  companion 
of  the  worm,  and  destined,  after  the  brief  space  of  '  the  life 
that  now  is,'  to  sink  into  annihilation.  No ;  you  are  to 
exist  when  the  whole  majestic  universe  around  you  shall  be 
no  more.  Cathedral  and  temple,  mansions  and  palaces  are 
to  crumble ;  lofty  mountain  and  retired  valley,  wide  spread- 
ing plains  and  umbrageous  forests  are  to  perish  ;  rivers  are 
to  cease  to  flow,  oceans  will  soon  no  longer  heave  their  rolling 
billows ;  the  stars  will  merge  in  darkness,  the  moon  *  shall 
be  turned  into  blood ; ' 

'  The  sun  is  but  a  spark  of  fire, 
A  transient  meteor  in  the  sky  ; ' 

while  YOU,  on  this  spot  of  earth,  bear  upon  you  the  mark  of 
immortality,  are  to  live — for  ever.  How  solemn  is  your 
existence  !  It  is  to  be  an  existence  in  heaven  or  in  hell :  an 
existence  where,  before  the  blaze  of  the  beatific  glory,  you 
shall  hym.n  the  hallelujahs  of  everlasting  gratitude  and  joy ; 
or  an  existence  where,  in  the  shadows  of  a  more  than  mid- 
night darkness,  you  shall  be  heard  wailing  and  cursing,  be 
found  agonised,  '  tormented  day  and  night,'  among  the  lost 
for  ever  and  for  ever.  How  solemn  your  existence,  as 
well  as  how  noble !  This  constitutes  the  series  of  facts 
which  you  are  to  contemplate.  My  hearers,  think  of  them. 
In  the  morning  light  and  evening  shade,  think  of  them.  At 
home  and  abroad,  travelling  and  at  rest,  think  of  them.     In 


294      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

the  silence  of  the  secret  chamber,  think  of  them ;  in  the 
society  of  the  domestic  hearth,  think  of  them ;  in  the 
assembly  of  the  great  congregation,  thitik  of  them  ;  in  sick- 
ness and  in  health,  think  of  them  ;  in  youth,  in  maturity,  in 
age,  think  of  them.  '  The  life  that  is  to  come  ' — a  life  so 
noble,  a  Hfe  so  solemn — .it  is  mine  ! " 

We  have  been  desirous,  in  these  remarks,  by 
fitting  quotation  to  do  justice  to  the  peculiar 
eloquence  of  this  great  preacher.  Our  space  is  very- 
inadequate  to  the  many  memories  which  crowd  upon 
us,  and  to  the  multitudes  of  well-known  sermons 
which  are  before  us  ;  perplexed,  however,  we  will  yet 
select  two  passages. 

"the  church  in  danger. 

"  The  security  of  the  Church,  my  brethren,  rests  upon  the 
purpose  of  the  Father,  the  mediation  of  the  Son,  and  the 
power  of  the  Spirit ;  and  the  perfections  of  the  triune  Jehovah 
are  solemnly  and  irrevocably  pledged  to  its  continuance. 
That  security  has  been  already  manifested  in  past  ages,  in 
circumstances  which  only  could  have  been  met  by  the  actual 
power  and  wisdom  of  Omnipotence ;  and  we  believe  that 
by  the  same  energy  it  will  be  kept  invulnerable  even  unto 
the  end.  Fears,  we  are  perfectly  aware,  are  often  enter- 
tained as  to  its  stability  and  as  to  its  powers  of  continued 
existence ;  and  the  alarm  has  not  unfrequently  been 
reiterated  (as  perchance  also  in  our  own  times)  that  '  the 
Church  is  in  danger.^  The  Church  in  danger !  False  systems, 
which  have  usurped  the  station  and  the  name,  may  be  in 
danger ;  but  the  true  Church,  never  /  The  Chu?-ch  in  danger  ? 
What !  that  Church  whose  banners  have  streamed,  like  the 
thunder  cloud  against  the  wifid,  and  pointed  steadily 
towards  the  very  centre  of  the  elementary  war  ?  That  Church 
whose  genius  has  stood  unmoved  alike  before  the  northern 


JAMES  PARSONS.  295 

tempest  and  the  sunbeam,  and  thrown  off  its  defence  for 
neither  ?  That  Church  which  has  been  uninjured  ahke  by 
Jewish  bigotry,  and  by  Grecian  subtlety,  and  by  Roman 
empire,  and  by  barbaric  brutaUty,  and  by  antichristian 
bloodshed,  and  by  infidel  blasphemy  ?  That  Church  which 
now  bears  around  it  the  recorded  triumphs  of  centuries,  and 
which  stands  without  a  bridge,  circumvallated  by  the 
immortal  fire  of  heaven  ?  The  Church  in  danger  ?  Is  the 
energy  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  danger?  Is  the  mediatorial 
exaltation  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  danger?  Is  the 
throne  of  the  Eternal  Father  in  dafiger  ?  Oh  !  talk  not  and 
dream  not  of  danger  while  He  Hves,  who  amid  the  chafing 
and  the  tumult  of  the  people  has  said  He  '  laughs,'  and  that 
He  *  has  them  in  derision  ; '  and  amid  all  change,  and  all 
convulsion,  repose  upon  the  promise  of  Him  who  bought  it 
by  His  blood.  '  Upon  this  rock  I  will  build  My  Church, 
and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it.'  It  was 
the  vain  panegyric  of  the  eulogist  of  ancient  Rome — '  While 
Rome  stands,  the  world  shall  stand  ;  and  when  Rome  falls, 
the  world  shall  fall.'  But  Zion  shall  never  fall — changeless 
amid  the  world's  mutation,  and  indestructible  amid  its  ruins 
'  Glorious  things  are  spoken  of  thee,  O  city  of  God.^ " 

In  the  same  sermon  occurs  our  next  quotation  : 

"  'glorious  things  are  spoken  of  thee,  o  city  of  god.' 

"And  what,  my  brethren,  was  the  end  for  which  the 
Saviour  died  but  that  He  should  be  the  propitiation  '  for 
the  sins  of  the  whole  world '  ?  And  what  was  the  purpose 
of  the  Saviour's  exaltation  but  that,  presiding  at  the  right 
hand  of  the  Majesty  on  high,  He  should  put  down  all  enemies 
under  His  feet? — in  the  poetry  of  the  great  apostle,  repre- 
sented as  intently  watching  the  revolutions  of  the  earth  for 
which  He  bled,  as  it  rolls  round  on  its  axis  amid  the  mighty 
realms  of  space,  '  expecting '  ( '  expecting,'  and  whaf  an 
expectation  in  such  a  bosom  !),  '  expecting  till  His  enemies  be 


296      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

made  His  footstool.'  And  He  must,  we  are  told  therefore, 
'  receive  dominion  and  glory  and  a  kingdom,  that  all  people, 
and  nations,  and  languages  should  serve  Him.'  Already, 
my  brethren,  the  march  to  the  spiritual  Zion  which  He  has 
constituted  has  begun  ;  and  the  representatives  of  various 
climes  and  kindreds  are  ever  and  anon  passing  her  portals, 
that  they  may  go  and  present  before  the  sacred  shrine  the 
tribute  of  their  adoration  and  their  praise.  Here  science 
shall  present  the  homage  of  her  discoveries  ;  philosophy,  of 
her  wisdom ;  commerce,  of  her  enterprise ;  art,  of  her 
labours ;  here  warriors  shall  dedicate  their  weapons,  nobles 
their  dignities,  and  monarchs  their  crowns.  Here  civilisation 
shall  pay  the  tribute  of  her  soft  refinement,  and  barbarism 
of  her  untutored  idleness.  Here  shall  be  poured  forth 
European  power,  here  Indian  pearl,  here  Peruvian  gold. 
Here  the  free  man  shall  present  his  charter ;  and  here  the 
slave,  now  a  slave  no  longer,  shall  bring  the  last  broken 
links  of  the  fetters  from  which  the  gospel  shall  have  disen- 
thralled him.  Man  shall  be  bound  in  one  brotherhood  of 
love,  all  harmonious,  all  pure,  all  happy.  '  There  shall  be 
neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision  nor  uncircumcision, 
barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free;'  but  Christ  shall  be  'all 
and  in  all.'     '  Paradise  '  will  be  '  regained.' 

•  For  He,  whose  car  the  winds  are,  and  the  clouds 
The  dust  that  waits  upon  His  sultry  march. 
When  sin  hath  moved  Him  and  His  wrath  is  hot, 
Shall  visit  earth  in  mercy ;  shall  descend 
Propitious,  in  His  chariot  paved  with  love, 
And  what  His  storms  have  blasted  and  defaced, 
For  man's  revolt,  shall  with  a  smile  repair.' 

"  '  Glori  ous  things  are  spoken  of  thee,  O  city  of  God ! ' " 

Mr.  Parsons  has  been  spoken  of  as  a  master  of 
climax  ;  this  method  of  speech  eminently  supposes 
what  indeed  abounds  in  all  our  preacher's  discourses, 


yAMES  PARSONS.  297 

— method,  order,  arrangement.  We  could  have  gladly 
presented  several  illustrations  of  this,  and  of  the 
gradual  march  of  sentences  of  what  may  be  called 
the  lighter  infantry,  or  the  rapid,  yet  heavy  cavalry 
of  speech  ;  everywhere  it  is  significant  that  method 
rules  ;  even  in  the  peroration  nothing  is  left  to  the 
impulse  or  passion  of  the  moment ;  from  many 
illustrations  let  the  following  suffice. 

"  THE   LAST  JUDGMENT. 

"  What  discoveries  will  be  made  then  I  What  development 
of  hidden  virtue  and  of  secret  vice !  How  that  which  is 
covered  now  will  be  revealed  !  and  how  that  which  is  hidden 
now  will  be  displayed,  as  upon  the  housetop !  How  those 
who,  in  the  present  world,  have  been  despised  and  rejected 
on  account  of  the  character  of  their  external  employment, 
will  be  found  exalted  to  the  high  places  of  honour  !  while 
those  who  have  here  held  high  station  in  the  world,  and  it 
may  be  in  the  professing  Church,  will  be  found  in  a  station 
of  shame  and  everlasting  contempt.  What  discoveries  will 
be  made  then  I 

"  And  what  unions  will  occur  then  /  The  saints  of  God, 
from  various  climes,  and  in  various  ages,  reciprocally  un- 
known to  each  other  but  by  distant  report,  or  probably 
unknown  to  each  other  at  all,  will  mingle  together;  while 
those  who  have  trodden  the  same  path  of  pilgrimage  will 
rush  to  each  other's  arms,  under  the  sanction  of  the  great 
President,  acknowledging  themselves  to  be  to  each  other  a 
glory,  a  crown  of  rejoicing,  and  a  joy,  in  the  day  of  His 
coming.      What  unions  will  be  then  ! 

"And  what  separations  will  be  then  /  Besides  the  grand 
separation  of  the  classes — the  righteous  and  the  wicked — 
what  separations  will  there  be  of  those  who  formerly  were 
joined  in  social  habitudes  and  relations  of  life — pastors  from 
people,  teachers  from  scholars,  husbands  from  wives,  parents 


298       THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

from  children,  friends  from  friends !  And  the  separations 
irreversible !  and  known  by  those  who  undergo  them  to  be 
irreversible.  It  will  be — my  heart  trembles  as  I  utter  the 
expression — it  will  be  the  scene  and  the  season  of  everlasting 
faretvell.  How  overpowering  then  is  to  be  that  great  event, 
when  the  assembly  shall  separate,  never  to  approach  and 
never  to  commingle  more  !  " 

We  have  already  remarked  that  the  sermons  of 
Mr.  Parsons  are  always  characterised  by  very  obvious 
and  distinct  arrangement  :  this  arrangement  is  per- 
ceptible not  merely  in  the  leading  ideas,  but  pervades 
every  part  of  the  sermon  ;  and  the  divisions  are 
generally  characterised  by  great  perspicuity  and 
neatness.  We  may  take  an  illustration  or  two, 
which  we  may  call 

THE    METHOD    OF  JAMES    PARSONS   EXHIBITED    IN   OUTLINES. 

"  *  BeJwId  the  place  where  they  laid  Him.'' — Mark  xvi.  6. 

'*  Introductory  observations  on  the  touching  and  sublime 
interest  attaching  to  the  grave  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  but 
especially  as  involved  in  the  thought  that  it  is  an  empty 
grave.  There,  even  now,  we  feel  as  though  we  heard  the 
voice  of  the  angel  spirit,  whose  bright  presence  seems  yet 
to  illumine  those  shadows,  saying,  '  Behold  the  place 
where  they  laid  Him.'     Then — 

"  I.  Consider  the  manner  in  which  He  was  committed 
there. 

"  I.  He  was  committed  there  by  persons  of  remarkably 
interesting  character,  Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  Nicodemus. 

"  2.  He  was  committed  there  with  many  tokens  of  regard 
and  affection. 

"  3.  He  was  committed  there  with  unostentatious  quiet- 
ness and  privacy. 

*'  II.  Again,  *  Behold  the  place  where   they  laid  Him.* 


JAMES  PARSONS.  299 

Consider  the  ends  which  by  His  committal  to  it  were 
accomphshed  there. 

"  I.  His  committal  to  that  place  confirmed  the  reality  of 
His  death. 

"  2.  His  committal  to  that  place  fulfilled  the  declarations 
of  ancient  prophecies  and  types. 

"  3.  His  committal  there  completed  the  abasement  of 
His  humiliation. 

"4.  His  committal  there  has  delightfully  softened  and 
mitigated  the  terrors  of  the  grave  for  His  people. 

"5.  By  His  committal  there  He  immediately  introduced 
His  own  mediatorial  exaltation  and  empire. 

"HI.  'Behold  the  place  where  they  laid  Him.'  And 
learn  the  lessons  which  are  inculcated  there. 

"  I.  Learn  the  tenderness  and  devotedness  of  His  love: 
that  He  should  be  found  in  that  dark  and  narrow  house, 
etc.,  etc. 

"  2.  Learn  the  duty  of  unreserved  devotedness  to  His 
will.  He  was  buried  for  you ;  must  we  not  be  buried  with 
Him! 

"  3.  Learn  the  abounding  consolations  we  possess  in 
reflecting  on  the  departure  of  our  Christian  friends,  and  in 
anticipating  our  own. 

"  Closing  remarks  on  the  grave  of  the  Christian  and  the 
ungodly  man.  Reference  to  the  text  in  Ecclesiastes  viii. 
10:  'I  saw  the  wicked  buried,'  etc." 

This  is  a  very  fair  illustration  of  the  order  pursued 
by  the  preacher  throughout  his  discourses  ;  and  if 
simplicity  and  perspicuity  be  the  objects  at  which  a 
preacher  should  aim,  such  outlines  are  admirable 
models.  Another  illustration  may  be  taken  in  the 
outline  of  the  sermon  on  the  thief  converted  on  the 
cross  ;  and  as  the  last  outline  exhibits  Mr.  Parsons 
in  his  mood  of  most  chaste  and  quiet  beauty,  this 


300      THE  VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

exhibits   him   in  his  more  exalted  reach  of  pathos 
and  tender  sublimity. 

"  The  Thief  on  the  Cross :  Luke  xxiii.  39-43. 

"  Introduction.  The  various  persons  passing  before  the 
cross  while  Christ  was  crucified.  The  two  thieves  reviling. 
The  remarkable  change  in  the  behaviour  of  one. 

"  I.  We  propose,  with  regard  to  the  case  before  us,  to 
notice  the  expressions  of  mental  emotion  he  uttered. 

"  I.  Observe  the  agency  by  which  those  expressions  were 
excited. — By  his  side  a  dying  Saviour,  etc.  There  must 
have  been  an  entire  transformation  of  feelings — conversion. 

**  2.  Consider  the  import  which  those  expressions  involved, 
as  deduced  from  the  story. 

"  (i)  Here  is  sympathy  with  the  Lord  Jesus  as  an  innocent 
sufferer :  '  This  man  hath  done  nothing  amiss,'  etc. 

"(2)  Here  is  also  penitence:  'We  indeed  justly,  for  we 
receive  the  reward  of  our  deeds,'  etc. 

*'  3.  Here  is  prayer — '  Remember  me.'  What  humility  ! 
He  only  aspired  to  be  remembered.  What  faith  !  He  felt 
that  to  be  remembered  was  enough.  What  love !  He 
desired  to  be  remembered  by  no  other  friend.  What  hope  ! 
He  had  an  ardent  anticipation  that  even  amidst  the 
gorgeous  splendours  of  the  kingdom  in  the  world  to  come, 
he,  the  poor  expiring  malefactor,  would  be  remembered 
there,  etc. 

"II.  We  proceed  now  to  notice  the  promise  of  exalted 
happiness  which  he  received.  Introduction  :  the  suspense 
of  the  malefactor.  The  gladness  of  the  Redeemer,  even 
then  seeing  of  the  travail  of  His  soul. 

"  I.  Observe  the  scene  of  this  promised  happiness.  *Thou 
shalt  be  with  Me  \n  paradise.' 

"  2.  Observe  the  nature  of  this  promised  happiness.  'Thou 
shalt  be  with  Ale  in  paradise.' 

"  3.  Observe  the  period  of  entering  on  the  enjoyment  of 
this  promised  happiness.     *  To-day  thou  shalt  be  with  Me  in 


JAMES  PARSONS.  301 

paradise.'  He  lived  to  hear,  amid  the  mysterious  darkness 
of  the  *  ninth  hour,'  his  Master  utter  the  shout  of  triumph, 
'  It  is  finished  ! '  and  '  He  bowed  His  head  and  gave  up  the 
ghost ; '  and  then  he  died  too,  and  the  Master  and  the 
servant,  the  Saviour  and  the  saved,  met  together  in  their 
empyreal  home.  How  rapid  was  the  process,  and  how 
swift  the  consummation  of  redemption  to  the  dying  thief ! 
In  one  day  he  was  enlightened,  he  was  pardoned,  he  was 
sanctified,  he  was  saved.  The  morning  saw  him  a  hardened 
malefactor ;  the  evening,  a  disembodied  spirit  in  glory. 
The  morning,  in  chains ;  the  evening,  disenthralled  for  ever. 
The  morning,  crucified ;  the  evening,  crowned.  The  morn- 
ing, weeping  the  first  tear  of  penitence ;  the  evening,  chant- 
ing the  first  anthem  of  praise.  He  seems  to  stand  before 
you  now  in  the  visions  of  eternity,  and  his  Master  above  him, 
holding  him  forth  as  a  model  to  the  universe,  and  proclaim- 
ing, in  His  own  ecstacy — I  am  He  *  that  speak  in  righteous- 
ness,' YET  '  MIGHTY  TO  SAVE  !  ' 

"  III.  We  are  led,  by  an  easy  and  natural  transition,  to 
notice  the  general  lessons  which  the  whole  case  is  adapted 
and  designed  to  inculcate. 

"  I .  The  case  exhibits  the  sovereignty  of  Divine  grace. 

"  Take  the  being  to  whom  grace  was  given.  A  male- 
factor, stained  by  ignorance  and  crime. 

"  Take  the  season.    The  last  moment  of  the  eleventh  hour. 

"  2.  This  case  teaches  the  reasonableness  of  hope  with 
regard  to  the  most  endangered  condition  of  man. 

"3.  This  case  presents  to  us  the  absolute  necessity  of 
repose  upon  the  Lord  Jesus  for  the  attainment  of  final 
happiness." 

We  v/ill  yet  present  our  readers  with  one  other  of 
these  masterly  outlines. 

"*  Ibeheldthe  transgressors,  and  was  grieved.' — Ps.  cxix.  158. 
"  Introduction.    One  of  the  influences  and  results  of  true 


302      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

piety  on  the  heart  is  to  move  its  sensibilities  on  behalf  of  the 
interests  and  welfare  of  others.  This  illustrated  in  the  text, 
in  which  we  observe — 

*'  I.  A  contemplation  of  the  prevalent  habits  and  charac- 
ter of  mankind  :  '  I  beheld  the  transgressors,'  etc. 

"  Transgressors  are  those  who  violate  the  law  which  they 
ought  to  obey. 

"  I.  God  has  actually  estabHshed  a  law  for  the  government 
of  mankind. 

*'  2,  There  is  amongst  mankind  a  prevalent,  and  fearfully 
extended,  rebellion  against  this  law.  Think  of  foreign 
and  of  remote  countries,  country  in  which  you  yourself 
dwell,  etc. 

"  3.  The  case  of  those  who  are  in  the  attitude  of  rebellion 
against  the  Divine  law  should  by  pious  minds  be  made  the 
matter  of  frequent  and  serious  contemplation. 

"  Let  us  now  proceed  to  notice  these  words — 

"  II.  As  they  present  a  record  of  the  emotion  which  this 
contemplation  properly,  and  specially,  produces  upon  the 
pious  mind.  Illustrated  in  the  instance  of  Ezra,  the  pos- 
sible author  of  Psalm  cxix.  (Ezra  ix.  5).  This  suggests  two 
inquiries. 

"  I.  For  what  reasons  this  emotion  must  be  excited. 

"  (i)  Because  transgression  is  so  insulting  to  God. 

"  (2)  Because  transgression  is  so  fatal  to  the  happiness  of 
mankind. 

"  2.  Inquire  to  what  conduct  this  emotion  should  prompt. 

"(i)  To  personal  nonconformity  to,  and  separation  from 
the  transgressions  which  we  witness  and  over  which  we 
mourn. 

"  (2)  To  personal  exertion  in  the  diffusion  of  that  truth 
which  God  has  appointed  as  the  instrument  to  reconcile  and 
save. 

"  (3)  To  personal  prayer  for  the  outpouring  of  the  renovat- 
ing influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit." 


'TAMES  PARSONS. 


303 


These  are  average  illustrations  of  the  symmetry 
of  Mr,  Parsons'  sermons.  It  will  be  seen  that  their 
architecture  is  usually,  we  believe  we  might  say 
invariably,  textual.  Such  sermons  very  naturally 
lead  to  the  discussion  of  the  question  in  what  pulpit 
usefulness  especially  consists.  It  must  be  admitted, 
as  we  have  already  said,  that  our  preacher  did  not 
deal,  in  the  pulpit,  with  the  world  of  thought ;  he  did 
not  set  himself  face  to  face  with  any  of  the  great 
questions  either  of  thought  or  criticism  in  our  day  ; 
he  took  the  word  of  God,  as  it  stands  in  our  English 
version,  as  the  great  text-book  for  his  magnificent 
and  rousing  homilies.  The  readers  of  Mr.  Parsons' 
sermons  will  notice  another  peculiarity,  not  very 
observable  in  the  pulpit  of  our  times,  namely,  the 
element  of  denunciation,  the  very  fearful  announce- 
ment of  the  punishments  of  hell  ;  these  were  preached 
with  immense  and  terrible  effect,  and  the  preacher 
no  doubt  received  his  pulpit  training  in  that  school 
which  had  felt  the  influence  of  such  fearful  eloquence 
as  that  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  whose  sermons  we  are 
perfectly  sure  Mr.  Parsons  regarded  with  great  admira- 
tion, and  elements  from  which  we  have  often  noticed 
in  the  texture  of  sermons  we  have  heard.  He 
ought  to  be  a  very  good,  and  pure,  and  holy  man, 
who  can  indulge  in  the  dreadful  portrayals  of  eternal 
terrors ;  it  is  exceedingly  dangerous  ground,  and 
when  its  descriptions  are  uttered  carelessly,  flippantly, 
or  even  mechanically,  as  the  mere  expression  of 
technical  theology,  it  can  only  produce  a  benumbing 
effect  upon  the  spiritual  sensibilities  of  the  preacher, 
while  the  hearers  awake  by-and-bye  from  the  terror, 
altogether   uninfluenced.     An   amazing  change   has 


304      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

passed  over  the  preaching  mind  within  the  last  thirty 
years,  and  multitudes  of  preachers,  who  have  not 
relaxed  their  faith  in,  nor  reverence  for  the  word  of 
God,  and  who  have  no  doubt  of  the  tremendous 
issues  of  eternity,  and  the  fearful  consequences  of 
sin,  still  shudder  as  they  attempt  to  preach  words 
such  as  those  with  which  the  sermons  of  Jonathan 
Edwards  abound. 

Such  was  Mr.  Parsons  :  we  have  presented  a  very 
brief  and  inadequate  view  of  his  pulpit  method.  To 
preachers  desirous  of  holding  and  instructing  an 
audience,  a  closer  study  of  his  style  would  be  very 
valuable.  He  was  the  son  of  a  highly  venerated 
father,  the  Rev.  Edward  Parsons,  of  Leeds,  and  the 
brother  of  a  preacher  whose  flow  of  eloquence  was 
of  a  most  transcendent  character. 

To  the  last  Mr.  Parsons  held  a  considerable  sway 
over  the  affections  of  the  people,  and  even  in  his 
oldest  age  his  name  was  a  talisman,  as  it  seemed  to 
suggest  the  memory  of  ancient  days  of  almost 
necromantic  power :  but  his  appearance  changed 
greatly  from  that  thin  frame  which,  in  earlier  days, 
seemed  struggling  with  death  ;  the  larger  and  heavier 
body,  however,  in  the  pulpit  was  still  instinct  with 
life,  or,  rather,  exercising,  against  all  calculation  and 
expectation,  a  spell  most  powerful  over  the  vast 
audience  ;  but  what  must  it  have  been  to  have  seen 
it  in  the  day  when  it,  too,  was  a  light  thin  framework 
of  a  body,  so  frail  that  one  almost  expected  the  soul 
to  rend  it  in  its  efforts  of  eloquence  and  power .'' 
We  did  not  then  know  Goethe's  celebrated  image  by 
which  he  describes  Hamlet  as  an  oak  planted  in  a 
glass  jar,  or  vase  ;  but  it  surely  typified  the  body 


JAMES  PARSONS.  305 

of  this  orator.  We  could  have  wept  for  the  apparent 
pain  with  which  he  spoke — the  apparent  bronchial 
affection  of  the  throat.  At  that  time  it  seemed  to 
us  the  indication  of  weakness,  suffering,  and  prema- 
true  death.  How  often  have  we  walked  six  weary- 
miles,  and  returned  as  many,  standing  the  whole 
period  of  the  service,  watching  with  a  kind  of  rever- 
ence the  downcast  head,  and  eye  furtively  glancing, 
— to  us  the  symbols  of  so  much  power  !  How  often 
have  we  strained  the  ear  to  catch, — if  possible  to 
travel  over  the  multitudes  of  heads — the  first  tones  of 
the  voice,  the  rapid  muttering  ;  and,  then,  that  cough 
in  the  gallery,  and  the  quick,  sharp  eye  of  the 
preacher,  darting  round,  determined,  apparently,  to 
have  no  coughing  there  during  Jiis  speech  !  And  then 
the  first  hurried  climax.  Words  Hke  the  gently- 
unloosened  winds  ; — another  period  of  comparative 
silence, — a  hush,  as  of  death,  a  waiting,  and  a  long- 
ing, an  undefined  desire,  a  quickening  of  the  pulse, 
— while  the  preacher  turned  rapidly  the  leaves  of 
his  Bible,  and  always  seemed  to  us,  as  if  by  magic, 
to  light  upon  the  right  quotation  ; — and  the  winds 
again, — the  winds,  wailing  louder,  louder,  from  their 
caves,  even  as  when  we  hear  them  among  the  high 
tree  tops,  presaging  and  prophesying  a  storm.  The 
second  climax  was  reached,  and  we  felt  our  own  eyes 
starting,  half  with  terror,  half  with  wonder,  so  rapid 
the  flight  up,  so  rapid  also  the  descent.* 

But  now  the    matter  was    more  continuous  and 


*  When  James  Parsons  preached  first  in  Leicester,  Robert 
Hall  heard  him.  Next  day  a  friend  of  ours  said  to  Mr.  Hall. 
"What  did  you  think  of  him,  sir?  "  "  Think  of  him,  sir! — 
think  of  him,  sir  !     What  could  I  think  of  him,  sir  ?    Glorious 

20 


3o6      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

sustained,  the  quotations  were  not  so  numerous  from 
Scripture.  The  first  half  of  the  discourse  usually- 
consisted  mainly  of  quotations  and  simple  statements, 
but  now  the  sentences  began  to  fall  like  flakes  of 
fire  about  us — it  scarcely  took  at  all  a  stretch  of  the 
imagination  to  believe  that  the  being  before  us  held 
lightnings  in  his  hands  and  eyes,  and  darted  their 
forked  arrowy  fires  over  the  assembly.  Strange, 
indeed,  no  simple  monosyllable  affected  us  so  before. 
We  did  in  those  times  believe  the  preacher  clad 
with  supernatural  power.  He  electrified  his  pro- 
nunciation ;  he  placed  his  words  as  we  place  wires  ; 
he  made  them  the  channels  of  a  current  of  fire. 
As  we  now  read  of  mesmerists,  who  communicate 
their  power  to  objects,  and  thus  make  mute  and 
dead  things  alive  with  a  magnetic  force,  so  did  he 
with  the  words  he  used.  We  pronounced  them, 
they  were  powerless ;  he  pronounced  them,  and 
they  clove  the  soul  in  twain. 

We  suppose  few  recent  preachers  have,  so  much  as 
Mr.  Parsons,  had  the  honour  of  having  their  sermons 
feloniously  preached  and  purloined  ;  it  is  very  piti- 
able, but  many  of  the  stories  told  in  illustration  of 
this  are  very  humorous.  Some  time  since  we  were 
conversing  with  a  minister  on  the  subject  of  this 
sketch,  enumerating  the  texts  from  which  we  had 
heard  him  preach,  and  recalling  some  of  the  impres- 
sions ;  among  others,  we  referred  to  the  sermon  we 
heard  in  the  Poultry  Chapel  several  years  since,  from 

Gospel  of  the  blessed  God!"  "Yes,  but  the  climax,  Mr. 
Hall !  What  did  you  think  of  the  climax  ?  "  *'  Oh  !  London 
lamplighter,  sir  !  London  lamplighter  1  No  sooner  up  than 
down — no  sooner  down  than  up  !  " 


JAMES  PARSONS.  307 


the  text,  "  Thou  hast  restrained  prayer  before  God." 
"  Ah,"  said  our  friend,  "  I  have  heard  that  sermon 
twice."  "  Indeed,"  we  said,  "  that  is  singular ;  for 
we  have  heard  James  Parsons  preach  hundreds  of 
times,  but  never  heard  the  same  sermon  twice."  "I 
did  not  say,"  said  our  friend,  "  that  I  had  heard  him 
preach  it  twice  ;  but  I  heard  it  first  when  you  heard 

it ;  and  the  Rev. came  down  to  preach  for 

us  our  anniversary  sermon,  and  he  preached  it  again : 
so  I  heard  it  twice."  Again,  we  know  of  a  remark- 
able  circumstance   in   the  town  of ,  when  two 

very  celebrated  pulpit  orators  were  engaged  for  two 
different  services,  in  connection  with  the  opening  of 
a  place  of  worship.  The  first  went  off  very  well, 
from  the  text,  "  Glorious  things  are  spoken  of  thee, 
O  city  of  God."  Down  came  the  other  brother  from 
London — a  still  more  popular  and  stately  personage 
— for  the  evening  service  ;  he  not  only  announced 
precisely  the  same  text,  but  preached  precisely  the 
same  sermon  ;  and  it  was  quite  a  matter  of  debate 

whether  P had  stolen  from  L ,  or  L 

from  P ;  but,  by-andbye,  it  was  discovered  they 

were  a  pair  of  thieves,  and  that  the  sermon  was 
the  one  from  which  we  have  quoted  ;  it  had  been 
published  years  before,  as  preached  by  Mr.  Parsons, 
in  an  old  volume  of  the  Pulpit. 

But  a  still  more  astonishing  revelation  the  curious 
reader  may  discover  for  himself,  if  he  will,  by  pur- 
chasing No.  2,373  of  the  Pulpit,  for  March  26,  1869, 
where,  beneath  the  text  "  There  shall  be  no  night 
there,"  he  will  find  precisely  the  same  sermon 
preached  by  Mr.  Parsons  from  the  same  text,  and 
published  in  the  same  periodical,  in  the  year  1837 


3o8      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

and  vol.  xxx. ;  we  forbear  to  mention  the  name  of 
the  clergyman  guilty  of  this  disgraceful  literary 
felony.  That  a  man  should  preach  another  man's 
thoughts  and  words  may  perhaps  be  forgiven  ;  the 
man  who  would  do  it  would  probably  give  to  his 
hearers  something  far  better  than  he  could  produce 
himself ;  but  that  he  should  publish  as  his  own  such 
a  literary  larceny  is  wonderful. 


CHAPTER  X. 

BILLINGSGATE  IN  THE  PULPIT. 

THERE  is  a  character  who,  we  suppose,  stands 
high  in  the  history  of  the  English  pulpit; 
certain  excellencies  cannot  be  denied  him,  and  yet, 
although  his  works  are  reproduced  from  generation 
to  generation,  he  is  our  own  special  abhorrence  ;  we 
cannot  derive  instruction  from  him  ;  we  can  scarcely 
permit  ourselves  to  laugh  even  at  his  drollery  or  his 
wit.  We  are  fairly  familiar  with  his  works,  yet  the 
most  disgraceful  pulpit  clowns,  whose  words  we  have 
read  or  heard,  have  never  stirred  our  disgust  so 
deeply  as  this  man.  We  perfectly  well  know  how 
many  readers  may  judge  our  estimate  dispropor- 
tionately severe  when  we  say  that  the  most  perfect 
embodiment  to  us  of  BiUingsgate  in  the  pulpit,  of  a 
Christless  teacher,  of  a  hollow,  or  rotten-hearted 
man,  seems  to  be  Robert  South.  It  has  been  well, 
and  truly  said,  even  by  one  of  his  eulogists,  that  no 
one  could  now  attempt  in  the  pulpit  the  wit  of 
South  without  making  a  fool  of  himself;  and  yet  his 
style  is  held  up  to  admiration  ;  it  is  said  his  English 
is  astonishing  for  its  maturity  and  perfection — "  pure, 
strong,  pointed,  unembarrassed  English,"  says  one  of 
his  critics ;  the  same  generous  reviewer  says  that 
"  he  speaks  right  out,  rough  and  heavy  as  it  may  be ; 


310      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

he  'kicks,'  and  'cuffs/  and  'mauls,'  and  'stabs,'  and 
'  butchers  ' !  "  A  nice  character  for  a  preacher  of 
the  Gospel  !  a  fine  illustration  of  the  mind  of  Christ  ! 
Take  a  sentence  or  two  from  this  Tom  Sayers  of  the 
pulpit,  who  seems  to  us  to  have  converted  West- 
minster Abbey  and  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  into  a 
kind  of  prize-ring.  Speaking  of  rich  and  wealthy 
sinners,  he  says  they  are  "  hell  and  damnation-proof; 
they  are  fattening  for  the  slaughter  of  eternity, 
damned  in  state,  and  go  to  hell  with  more  ease, 
more  flourish  and  magnificence  than  others."  He 
speaks  of  such  persons,  if  they  find  their  way  to  the 
Communion,  as  "  wretches  at  the  Holy  Sacrament;" 
he  says,  "  When  I  consider  the  pure  and  blessed  body 
of  our  Saviour,  passing  through  the  open  sepulchre 
of  such  throats  into  the  noisome  receptacles  of 
their  boiling  fermenting  breasts,  it  seems  to  me  a 
lively  but  sad  representation  of  Christ  being  first 
buried,  and  then  descending  into  hell."  Speaking 
of  original  sin  in  infants,  he  says,  "  Might  we  see 
into  the  heart  of  the  least  infant,  we  should  behold  a 
nest  of  impurities  like  a  knot  of  little  snakes 
wrapped  up  in  a  dunghill." 

Such  flowers  of  rhetoric  strew  the  pathway  of  the 
speech  of  this  High  Church  dignitary.  When  Crom- 
well was  in  power,  South  poured  out  a  splendid 
poetical  eulogy  on  the  great  Protector  ;  but  he  made 
amends  for  this :  preaching  before  Charles  the 
Second,  he  poured  out  a  tirade  upon  "  that  beggarly 
bankrupt  fellow,  Cromwell,  who  murdered  one  king, 
and  kept  another  out  of  his  inheritance,"  and  it  is 
said  that  the  king,  Charles  the  Second,  who  heard 
this  sweet   discourse,  nudged    Rochester,  and    said, 


BILLINGSGATE  IN  THE  PULPIT.  311 


"  We  must  make  this  fellow  a  bishop  !  "  Probably 
this  was  what  he  was  aiming  at  when  he  indulged 
again  in  the  most  fulsome  eulogy  upon  the  licentious 
and  scoffing  king  ;  but  the  full  affluence  of  his  abuse 
was  reserved  for  his  old  friends,  the  Puritans  and 
Presbyterians  ;  then  his  opprobrium  became  club- 
like, and  his  wit  not  so  keen  as  it  was  coarse,  as 
when  he  says,  "  Many  of  them  thought  themselves 
sure  of  heaven,  but  it  was  equally  sure  that  they 
would  take  Tyburn  on  the  way  there."  Some  of  his 
expressions  about  them  were  very  droll  ;  their 
ministers  were  "  men  of  a  screwed  face,  and  doleful 
whine,  speaking  bad  sense  with  worse  looks  ;"  again, 
"  They  were  men  of  a  large  and  sanctified  swallow, 
with  capacious  consciences  that  stuck  neither  at 
robbery  nor  murder."  This  was  the  style  in  which 
this  rabid  recreant  could  talk  of  the  Howes,  the 
Flavels,  the  Baxters  and  Bunyans  ;  and  after  this  we 
think  we  must  modify  much  of  the  indignation  we 
have  felt  as  we  have  seen  the  pulpit  turned  into  a 
kind  of  Richardson's  booth,  and  occupied  by  the 
coarse  and  heartless  clown. 

This  state  of  things,  we  might  hope,  has,  with  us, 
long  gone  by,  and  yet  we  have  here,  circulating 
widely,  the  life  of  Peter  Cartwright,  a  gentle-minded, 
lamb-like  Christian,  to  whom  it  was  about  a  matter 
of  equal  indifference  whether  he  should  fight  or 
preach,  and  whose  discourses,  not  unfrequently,  had 
all  the  most  offensive  vulgarity  of  the  quotations  we 
have  given  from  South,  although  set  to  the  tune  of 
a  widely  different  theology.  Now,  it  is  with  us  a 
pretty  definite  conviction,  although  we  are  aware 
how  fearful  the  hazard  is  that  we  may  be  contra- 


312      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

dieted,  that  Christianity  does  not  smile  upon,  and 
approve  bullying  and  pugilism.  Certainly,  if  circum- 
stances arise  to  develop  the  spirit  of  the  prize-ring 
in  the  Christian  preacher,  this  does  not  seem  to  be 
the  thing  to  exalt  to  the  ideal  of  Christian  biography. 
The  age  of  the  early  Christians  was  very  favourable 
to  the  inculcation  of  these  pugilistic  lessons,  but, 
singular  to  say,  the  New  Testament  contains  none. 
He  was  a  strange  fellow,  this  Peter  Cartwright — no 
doubt  much  about  him  that  was  manly,  and  noble, 
and  truthful ;  but  the  young  men  who  read  it  to 
their  great  edification  may  remember  that,  even 
admitting  some  virtue  in  the  book,  it  belongs  to  an 
order  of  society  we  hope  entirely  unlike  ours  ;  a 
society  of  rowdies  and  filibusterers,  of  scoundrels  and 
slave-holders. 

Well,  we  do  not  desire  to  see  this  spirit  return 
into  the  midst  of  our  pulpit  life.  We  have  passed 
through  it.  And  perhaps  the  coarse  arid  vulgar 
pugilist,  Peter  Cartwright,  was  inherently  a  finer 
character  than  the  scholarly  South.  Meanness  is 
never  so  detestable  as  when  it  condescends  to  be- 
smirch itself  with  grossness.  What  could  be  expected 
from  a  man  who  could  say,  ^^  Gratitude  among  friends 
is  like  credit  among  tradesmen :  it  keeps  business  up, 
and  maintains  the  correspondence  ;  and  we  pay  not 
so  much  out  of  a  principle  that  we  ought  to  dis- 
charge our  debts,  as  to  secure  ourselves  a  place  to 
be  trusted  another  time  "  ?  A  nice  clean  sentiment 
for  a  Christian  teacher !  But  it  takes  away  all 
surprise  at  the  following  passage,  from  a  sermon 
preached  before  the  king,  of  virtuous  memory,  and 
to  which  we  have  already  referred. 


BILLINGSGATE  IN  THE  PULPIT.  313 

'*  *  Who  that  looked  upon  Agathocles  first  handhng  the 
clay,  and  making  pots  under  his  father,  and  afterwards 
turning  robber,  could  have  thought  that  from  such  a  con- 
dition, he  should  have  come  to  be  King  of  Sicily  ? 

" '  Who  that  had  seen  Massaniello,  a  poor  fisherman  with 
his  red  cap  and  his  angle,  would  have  reckoned  it  possible 
to  see  such  a  pitiful  thing,  within  a  week  after,  shining  in 
his  cloth  of  gold,  and  with  a  word  or  nod  absolutely  com- 
manding the  whole  city  of  Naples  ? 

"  '  And  who  that  beheld  such  a  bankrupt,  beggarly  fellow 
as  Cromwell,  first  entering  the  Parliament  house  with  a 
threadbare  torn  cloak,  greasy  hat  (perhaps  neither  of  them 
paid  for),  could  have  suspected  that  in  the  space  of  so  few 
years,  he  should,  by  the  murder  of  one  king,  and  the 
banishment  of  another,  ascend  the  throne  ? '  At  which 
the  king  fell  into  a  fit  of  laughter,  and  turning  to  the 
Lord  Rochester,  said,  *  Ods  fish,  Lory,  your  chaplain  must 
be  a  bishop ;  therefore  put  me  in  mind  of  him  at  the  next 
death.'  " 

It  is  impossible  to  read  South  with  pleasure  :  in 
the  most  unlikely  places  the  abusive  spirit  of  the 
foul-mouthed  old  renegade, — for,  as  we  have  said, 
he  had  been  of  the  Puritan  party, — offends  any  reader 
who  regards  decency  and  decorum  of  language. 
We  feel  that  he  who  could  write  thus  had  attained 
to  no  knowledge  of  the  text  and  purity  of  the  Chris- 
tian life.  To  this  he  also  owes  much  of  his  popu- 
larity; yet  his  style  is  certainly  robust  and  masculine, 
but  it  is  heavy,  the  sentences  are  long,  and  some- 
times drag  wearily.  It  is  strange  to  say  it  reads 
like  a  very  honest  style  :  there  are  no  glowing  words, 
no  fancies,  there  is  nothing  imaginative  nor  ideal. 
He    never    rises    beyond    common    sense.     He    is 


314      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

impatient  of  all  those  topics  which  belong  either  to 
the  symbolism  of  the  Church  or  to  the  spiritual 
aspects  of  its  faith,  and  his  wit  is  not  profuse,  and 
when  it  comes,  it  is  either  in  low  vulgar  coarseness, 
or  it  is  merely  a  remark  with  some  point  in  its 
analogy.  When  those  who  are  not  acquainted  with 
his  writings  read  of  the  wit  of  South,  they  must  not 
expect  the  affluence  and  redundancy  of  Swift,  nor  the 
smartness  of  Sydney  Smith ;  and  some  acquaintance 
with  his  works  will  reduce  his  proportions  to  those 
of  a  by  no  means  extraordinary  writer,  as  he  was 
in  no  sense  an  admirable  man.  His  excellency  is 
to  be  traced  to  the  fact  that  he  stated,  with  great 
clearness  and  precision,  truths  quite  level  to  the 
ordinary  mind.  His  cube  was  a  very  contracted 
one,  and  he  had  neither  the  intelligence,  genius,  nor 
taste  to  look  beyond,  nor  to  attempt  to  gauge  wide 
relations  ;  this  is  evident  in  his  sermon  on  Conthi- 
gencies,  which  at  once  illustrates  his  shallowness  in 
philosophy,  and  abusiveness  in  spirit.  Perhaps  his 
supposed  wit  and  real  coarseness  have  obscured  his 
more  solid  excellences,  for  these  are  to  be  traced  ; 
but  among  those  who  have  sinned  by  the  introduc- 
tion of  drollery  into  the  pulpit  we  know  of  none  so 
disgusting  as  he.  He  had  not  the  shelter  of  a 
harassed  and  persecuted  party,  nor  the  motives  of 
an  impulsive  nature.  He  was  simply  a  spiteful, 
malevolent  time-server ;  there  was  nothing  kind  nor 
genial  in  the  humour  of  the  man,  and  his  satire  was 
only  able  to  take  aim  at  Puritanism  or  at  piety. 
But  there  are  fine  passages  in  South.  "  A  blind  man 
sitting  in  the  chimney  corner  is  pardonable  enough, 
but  sitting  at  the  helm,  he  is  intolerable."    "Solomon 


BILLINGSGATE  IN  THE  PULPIT.  315 

built  his  temple  with  the  tallest  cedars  ;  and  surely 
when  God  refused  the  defective  and  the  maimed  for 
sacrifice,  we  cannot  think  He  requires  them  for  the 
priesthood."  When  we  find  him  discoursing  to  us 
as  follows  we  listen  impressed  and  thoughtful. 

*'  Every  judgment  of  God  has  a  force  more  or  less  de- 
structive, according  to  the  quality  and  reception  of  the  thing 
that  it  falls  upon.  If  it  seizes  the  body,  which  is  but  of  a 
mortal  and  frail  make,  and  so,  as  it  were,  crumbles  away 
under  the  pressure,  why,  then  the  judgment  itself  expires 
through  the  failure  of  a  sufficient  subject  or  recipient,  and 
ceases  to  be  predatory,  as  having  nothing  to  prey  upon. 
But  that  which  comes  out  of  its  Creator's  hands  immaterial 
and  immortal  endures  and  continues  under  the  heaviest 
stroke  of  His  wrath ;  and  so  is  able  to  keep  pace  with  the 
infliction  (as  I  may  so  express  it)  both  by  the  largeness  of 
its  perception  and  the  measure  of  its  duration.  He  who 
has  a  soul  to  suffer  in  has  something  by  which  God  may 
take  full  hold  of  him,  and  upon  which  He  may  exert  His 
anger  to  the  utmost.  Whereas,  if  He  levels  the  blow  at 
that  which  is  weak  and  mortal,  the  very  weakness  of  the 
thing  stricken  at  will  elude  the  violence  of  the  stroke,  as 
when  a  sharp,  corroding  rheum  falls  upon  the  lungs,  that 
part  being  but  of  a  spongy  nature,  and  of  no  hard  substance, 
little  or  no  pain  is  caused  by  the  distillation ;  but  the  same 
falling  upon  a  nerve  fastened  to  the  jaw,  or  to  a  joint  (the 
consistency  and  firmness  of  which  shall  give  force  to  the 
impression),  it  presently  causes  the  quickest  pain  and 
anguish,  and  becomes  intolerable.  A  cannon  bullet  will  do 
terrible  execution  upon  a  castle-wall  or  a  rampart,  but  none 
at  all  upon  a  wool-pack." 

But  he  will  not  allow  us  to  enjoy  in  quiet  long. 
To    come    to    later    times,    and    less    illustrious 


3i6      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

spheres,  some  sermons  are  much  more  coarse  in 
seeming  than  in  reality.  We  have  lying  before  us 
now  on  the  table  the  old  sermon,  well  known  and 
often  quoted,  Beelzebub  Driving  and  Drozvning  his 
HogSf  by  J.  Burgess,  with  its  three  queer  divisions : — 

"In  these  words,  the  devil  verified  three  old  English 
proverbs,  which,  as  they  contain  the  general  drift  of  my 
text,  shall  also  contain  the  substance  of  this  ensuing  dis- 
course. 

**  I.  The  devil  will  play  at  small  game,  rather  than  none 
at  all. 

"  'All  the  devils  besought  Him,  saying,  Send  us  into  the 
swine,  that  we  may  enter  into  them.' 

"  2.  They  run  fast  whom  the  devil  drives. 

" '  When  the  unclean  spirits  entered  into  the  swine,'  'tis 
said,  *  The  whole  herd  ran  violently.' 

"  And  3.  The  devil  brings  his  hogs  to  a  pretty  market. 

"  '  Behold,  the  whole  herd  ran  down  a  steep  place  into  the 
sea,  and  were  choked.'  " 

But  in  the  sermon  itself  there  is  nothing  charac- 
terised by  especial  bad  taste,  while  we  should 
suppose  it  would,  to  a  plain  people,  not  be  delivered 
without  useful  hint  and  suggestion.  There  is  much 
more  real  coarseness  in  the  following  quotation, 
given  by  Robinson  from  a  sermon  by  Edward 
Willans,  Vicar  of  Hoxne,  Suffolk.* 

"  He  that  hath  no  charity  in  his  cribhage  must  needs  be 
bilkt  at  his  last  account,  for  all  that  faith  which  he  turneth 
tip  in  his  profession. — Let  us  frog  less  for  gifts,  a?id  pray 
more  for  gj-ace. — The  fairest  7vay  into  the  city  of  the  text  is 
through  the  suburbs  of  the  verse  before  it. — It  is  a  bargain 

*  Robinson,  "Claude." 


BILLINGSGATE  IN  2 HE  PULPIT.  317 

of  God's  own  makbig,  to  honour  them  that  honour  Him. — 
As  soon  as  we  are  loosed  from  our  mother's  womb,  we  are 
all  bound  towards  the  womb  of  our  great-grandmother,  the 
earth. — The  most  emphatical  words  in  the  text "  (Matt.  xiii. 
45,  46)  "are  borrowed  either  from  that  richer  way  of  mer- 
chandising by  wholesale,  or  from  that  poorer  way  oi peddling 
by  retail. — All  usury  cannot  draw  all  the  gttts  and  garbage 
of  the  earth  into  one  man's  coffers  ;  no,  nor  so  much  as  the 
white  and  yellow  entrails  of  the  Indian  earth." 

Robinson  says  : — 

"Some  comparisons  are  odious.  The  filthiest  sermon 
that  ever  I  read  was  preached  by  the  glorious  author 
of  *  Icon  Basilike,'  Dr.  Gauden,  before  the  Lord  Mayor  and 
Aldermen  of  London,  in  St.  Paul's,  1659.  The  text  is 
Jeremiah  viii.  11,  'They  have  healed  the  hurt  of  the  daughter 
of  my  people  slightly.'  The  Doctor  says,  '  The  prophet's 
bowels  were  pained  by  that  coarctation  which  fear  makes 
upon  the  lactes  and  smaller  bowels  near  the  heart.'  There 
is  hardly  a  species  of  hospital  nastiness  which  is  not  intro- 
duced here.  '  The  text  has  six  parts  :  a  patient,  the  sick 
Church  of  England ;  her  Jmrt ;  her  present  healing ;  the 
cheat  oi\\.)  those  magniloquent  mountebanks,  fanaticks;  and, 
lastly,  the  true  way  of  healing  by  that  catholicon  E^piscopacy.' 
.  .  .  Ah,  Doctor !  .  .  .  The  Doctor's  patient  is  'his  daughter, 
his  sister,  his  mother,  a  forsaken  virgin,  a  rich  married  wife, 
and  a  poor  desolate  widow.'  This  good  lady  has  got 
'  flesh-wounds,  ulcers,  gangrenes,  pustules,  angry  biles, 
running  issues,  and  fistulas ;  she  is  plethorick  and  consump- 
tive, her  spirits  are  flat,  and  her  head  is  cracked  ;  she  has 
got  the  itch  and  the  scratch,  and  her  inward  wounds  are 
bleeding;'  and  in  this  miserable  plight  'some  violent 
sons  of  Belial  commit  a  horrible  rape  upon  her.'  Presently 
they  bring  'salves,  elixirs,  and  diurnal  doses,  and  sing 
lullaby.^    At  last  comes  Dr.  Gauden,  and  applies  '  lenitives, 


3i8      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

unguents,  and  poultices ;  he  purges  humours,  removes  proud 
flesh,  probes  and  cleanses  festered  places,  cures  pantings 
and  fainting  fits,  and  all  the  other  fedity  which  that  un- 
mannerly medicaster,  the  devil,  had  caused  by  his  infernal 
eructations.'  .  .  .  All  this — and  ten  times  worse — at  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral,  before  the  Lord  Mayor  and  all  the  city 
magistrates,  the  several  livery  companies,  the  Lord  General 
Monk,  the  clergy,  gentry,  ladies,  and  populace,  by  their 
'humble  servant  in  Christ,  John  Gauden,  D.D.,'  after- 
wards the  Right  Rev.  Father  in  God,  John,  Lord  Bishop  of 
Exeter." 

In  reviewing  the  history  of  pulpit  eloquence,  we 
are  often  reminded  of  the  old  fable  of  the  cuckoo 
and  the  nightingale.  Both  contended  who  should 
sing  the  sweetest  ;  and  the  ass,  because  of  his  long 
ears,  was  made  the  judge.  The  nightingale  sang 
first,  the  cuckoo  next.  The  ass's  determination  was 
that  truly  the  nightingale  sang  pretty  well  ;  but 
that  for  a  good,  sweet,  plain,  taking  song,  and  a 
fine,  clear  note,  the  cuckoo  sang  far  better.  Well, 
we  too  have  our  own  regards  for  the  cuckoo,  but 
we  must  remind  that  bird  that,  in  fact,  it  is  not  a 
nightingale.  We  see  some  dispositions  nowadays 
to  elevate  the  cuckoo  to  an  unseemly  dignity.  But 
coarseness  is,  indeed,  neither  cuckoo  nor  nightingale. 
Yet,  in  many  ages  of  the  Church,  has  not  this  been 
the  most  pleasant  and  engrafted  word  ?  There  is 
an  order  of  preaching  and  of  prayer  which  shakes 
hands  and  says  "  Hail,  fellow,  well  met "  to  blas- 
phemy. An  old  volume  before  us — "  Presbyterian 
Eloquence  Displayed  "* — abounds  in  illustrations  of 

*  It  may  most  truly  be  said  of  this  selection,  An  enemy 
hath  done  this ;  but  they  enter  into  the  history  of  the  pulpit, 


BILLINGSGATE  IN  THE  PULPIT.  319 

this  shocking  mood  of  mind.     We  select  a  few  illus- 
trations, far  from  the  worst : — 

"  One  John  Simple,  a  very  zealous  preacher  among  them, 
used  to  personate  and  act  sermons  in  the  old  monkish  style. 
At  a  certain  time  he  preached  upon  that  debate,  Whether  a 
man  be  justified  by  faith  or  by  works,  and  acted  it  after  this 
manner  :  *  Sirs,  this  is  a  very  great  debate  ;  but  who  is  that 
looking  in  at  the  door,  with  his  red  cap  ?  Follow  your 
look,  sir;  it  is  very  ill  manners  to  be  looking  in:  But 
what's  your  name  ?  Robert  Bellarmine.  Bellarmine,  saith 
he,  whether  is  a  man  justified,  by  faith  or  by  works?  He 
is  justified  by  works.  Stand  thou  there,  man.  But  what 
is  he,  that  honest-like  man  standing  in  the  floor  with  a  long 
beard,  and  Geneva  cowl  \Jiood\  ?  A  very  honest-like  man  ! 
draw  near ;  what's  your  name.  Sir  ?  My  name  is  John 
Calvin.  Calvin,  honest  Calvin,  whether  is  a  man  justified, 
by  faith  or  by  works  ?  He  is  justified  by  faith.  Very 
well,  John,  thy  leg  to  my  leg,  and  we  shall  hough  \trip\ 
down  Bellarmine  even  now.' 

"  Another  time,  preaching  on  the  day  of  judgment,  he  told 
them,  *  Sirs,  this  will  be  a  terrible  day ;  we'll  all  be  there, 
and  in  the  throng  I,  John  Simple,  will  be,  and  all  of  you 
will  stand  at  my  back.     Christ  will  look  to  me,  and  He  will 

and  are  not  altogether  unfair  illustrations  of  its  character  in 
the  times  to  which  they  refer.  We  have  in  our  possession  a 
curious  collection  of  tracts  to  the  same  purpose,  exhibiting 
the  defects  of  several  sides  and  parties,  such  as  "  Pulpit 
Sayings  ;  or,  The  Characters  of  the  Pulpit-Papist,  examined 
in  answer  to  the  'Apology  for  the  Pulpits.'"  Sold  at  the  Print- 
ing House  on  the  Ditch  Side,  Blackfriars,  1688.  "A  Century 
of  Eminent  Presbyterian  Preachers."  By  a  Lover  of  Episco- 
pacy, 1723.  "  An  Apology  for  the  Pulpits  ;  being  an  Answer 
to  the  Book  intituled  'Good  Advice  to  the  Pulpits,'  "  1638. 
"Seventeen  Arguments  proving  the  Unlawfulness,  Sinfulness, 
and  Danger  of  suffering  Private  Persons  to  take  upon  them 
Public  Preaching,"  1651.  "  The  Preacher,  a  Poem,  "  1700, 
etc.,  etc. 


320      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

say,  Who  is  that  standing  there  ?  I'll  say  again,  Yea  even 
as  ye  ken'd  not  \knew  not]  Lord.  He'll  say,  I  know  thou's 
honest,  John  Simple  ;  draw  near,  John  ;  now,  John,  what 
good  service  have  you  done  to  Me  on  earth  ?  I  have 
brought  hither  a  company  of  blue  bonnets  for  you,  Lord. 
Blue  bonnets,  John  1  What  is  become  of  the  brave  hats, 
the  silks,  and  the  sattins,  John  ?  I'll  tell,  I  know  not.  Lord; 
they  went  a  gait  [a  road]  of  their  own.  Well,  honest  John, 
thou  and  thy  blue  bonnets  are  welcome  to  Me;  come  to  My 
right  hand,  and  let  the  devil  take  the  hats,  the  silks,  and 
the  satins.' 

**  Mr.  Simple  (whom  I  named  before)  told,  '  That  Sampson 
was  the  greatest  fool  that  ever  was  born  ;  for  he  reveal'd  his 
secrets  to  a  daft  hussy  \foolish  wench],  Sampson  !  you  may 
well  call  him  fool  Thomson;  for  of  all  the  John  Thomson's 
men  \/ien-peckt  men]  that  ever  was,  he  was  the  foolest' 

*'  We  have  a  sermon  written  from  the  preacher's  mouth  by 
one  of  their  own  zealots,  whereof  this  is  one  passage: 
'  Jacob  began  to  wrestle  with  God,  an  able  hand,  forsooth  ! 
Ay,  Sirs,  but  he  had  a  good  second,  that  was  Faith  :  Faith 
and  God  gave  two  or  three  tousles  together ;  at  last  God 
dings  \peats]  down  faith  on  its  bottom ;  Faith  gets  up  to 
his  heels,  and  says,  Well,  God,  is  this  your  promise  to  me  ? 
I  trow,  I  have  a  ticket  in  my  pocket  here :  Faith  brings  out 
the  ticket,  and  stops  it  in  God's  hand,  and  said,  Now,  God  ! 
Is  not  this  your  own  write  ?  deny  your  own  hand-write  if 
you  dare !  Are  these  the  promises  you  gave  me  ?  Look 
how  you  guide  me  when  I  come  to  you.  God  reads  the 
ticket,  and  said,  Well,  well,  Faith  !  I  remember  I  gave  you 
such  a  promise ;  good  sooth,  Faith,  if  you  had  been  another, 
thou  should  have  got  all  the  bones  in  thy  skin  broken.' " 

Mr.  John  Welsh,  a  man  of  great  esteem,  once 
preaching  on  these  words  of  Joshua,  As  for  me  and 
my  house,  we  will  serve  the  Lord,  etc.,  had  this 
preface ; — 


BILLINGSGATE  IN  THE  PULPIT.  321 

"  *  You  think,  Sirs,  that  I  am  come  here  to  preach  the  old 
jog-trot,  faith  and  repentance,  to  you ;  not  I,  indeed ; 
What  think  you  then  I  am  come  to  preach?  I  came  to 
preach  a  broken  covenant.  Who  brake  it  ?  even  the  devil's 
lairds,  his  bishops,  and  his  curates ;  and  the  de'il,  de'il,  will 
get  them  all  at  last.  I  know  some  of  you  are  come  out  of 
curiosity  to  hear  what  the  Whigs  will  say.  Who  is  a  Whig, 
Sirs  ?  One  that  will  not  swear,  nor  curse,  nor  ban ;  there 
is  a  Whig  for  you :  But  you  are  welcome,  Sirs,  that  come 
out  of  curiosity ;  you  may  get  good  ere  ye  go  back  again. 
I'll  give  you  an  instance  of  it :  There  was  Zaccheus,  a  man 
of  low  stature,  that  is,  a  little  droichy  \_dwarf\  body,  and  a 
publican,  that  is,  he  was  one  of  the  excisemen ;  he  went  out 
of  curiosity  to  see  Christ,  and,  because  he  was  little,  he 
went  up  a  tree :  do  you  think.  Sirs,  he  went  to  harry  a  pyot's 
nest?  [rifle  a  magpie's  nest].  No,  he  went  to  see  Christ; 
Christ  looks  up,  and  says,  Zaccheus,  thou  art  always  proving 
pratticks,  thou'rt  no  bairn  now;  go  home,  go  home,  and 
make  ready  My  dinner ;  I'll  be  with  you  this  day  at  noon. 
After  that,  Sirs,  this  little  Zaccheus  began  to  say  his  prayers, 
evening  and  morning,  as  honest  old  Joshua  did  in  my  text  • 
As  for  me  and  my  house,  etc.,  as  if  he  had  said.  Go  you  to 
the  devil  and  you  will,  and  I  and  my  house  will  say  our 
prayers.  Sirs,  as  Zaccheus  and  the  rest  of  the  apostles  did.' " 

Poor  Laurence  Sterne  !  We  have  never  been  able 
to  regard  his  sermons  in  a  much  higher  light  than 
as  exhibitions  of  pulpit  drollery. 

It  has  often  been  the  case  that  preachers  have 
adopted  a  quite  hysterical  style  in  the  commence- 
ment of  their  sermons — a  sort  of  attention-at-any- 
price  kind  of  style — well  illustrated  in  the  sermons 
of  Laurence  Sterne  ;  a  strange  man  to  find  in 
the  pulpit  at  all ;  but  his  sermons,  principally  from 
the    wide    fame    of   the    wit,    attained    to    a    large 

21 


322      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

celebrity,  nor  are  they  without  some  excellences, 
but  chiefly  of  the  sentimental  and  satiric  kind  ;  jerks 
and  artifices  abound  through  them  all,  but  especially 
in  the  commencements.  Thus  from  Ecclesiastes 
vii.  2,  3  : — 

"*IT   IS    BETTER  TO   GO   TO  THE   HOUSE   OF   MOURNING 
THAN   TO   THE   HOUSE   OF    FEASTING.' 

"  That  T  deny  ; — but  let  us  hear  the  wise  man's  reasoning 
upon  it, — 'for  that  is  the  end  of  all  men,  and  the  Hving 
will  lay  it  to  his  heart ;  sorrow  is  better  than  laughter  j ' — 
for  a  crack-brain'  d  order  of  Carthusian  monks,  I  grant,  but  not 
for  men  of  the  woi'ld !  For  what  purpose,  do  you  imagine, 
has  God  made  us  ?  for  the  social  sweets  of  the  well-watered 
valleys,  where  He  has  planted  us,  or  for  the  dry  and  dismal 
desert  of  a  Sierra  Morena?  Are  the  sad  accidents  of  life, 
and  the  uncheery  hours  which  perpetually  overtake  us,  are 
they  not  enough  but  we  must  sally  forth  in  quest  of  them, 
— belie  our  own  hearts,  and  say,  as  your  text  would  have  us, 
that  they  are  better  than  those  of  joy  ?  Did  the  Best  of 
Beings  send  us  into  the  world  for  this  end, — to  go  weeping 
through  it, — to  vex  and  shorten  a  life  short  and  vexatious 
enough  already?  Do  you  think,  my  good  preacher,  that  He 
who  is  infinitely  happy  can  envy  us  our  enjoyments  ?  or 
that  a  Being  so  infinitely  kind  would  grudge  a  mournful 
traveller  the  short  rest  and  refreshments  necessary  to  support 
his  spirits  through  the  stages  of  a  weary  pilgrimage  ?  or  that 
He  would  call  him  to  a  severe  reckoning  because  in  his 
way  he  had  hastily  snatched  at  some  little  fugacious  pleasures, 
merely  to  sweeten  this  uneasy  journey  of  fife,  and  reconcile 
him  to  the  ruggedness  of  the  road,  and  the  many  hard 
jostlings  he  is  sure  to  meet  with  ?" 

Surely    a    most   unwise   and   irreverent   mode   of 
opening  up  a  subject.     Again,  in  his  sermon  on  the 


BILLINGSGATE  IN  THE  PULPIT.  323 

character  of  Shimei — one  of  the  best  illustrations  of 
Sterne's  style — in  which  he  shows  how  Shimei 
reflects  all  the  features  of  David,  according  to  the 
true  temper  of  the  world — as  David  is  prospered, 
he  honours  him  ;  as  he  is  unlucky,  he  reviles  him. 

"  *  But  Abishai  said,  Shall  not  Shimei  be  put  to  death  for 
this  1 ' 

*'  — It  has  not  a  good  aspect. — This  is  the  second  time 
Abishai  has  proposed  Shimei's  destruction." 

The  following  passage  illustrates  Sterne's  better, 
but  wholly  ethical  and  unevangelical,  style  : — 

"  In  all  David's  prosperity,  there  is  no  mention  made  of 
him;  " — (Shimei)  "he  thrust  himself  forward  into  the  circle, 
and,  possibly,  was  numbered  amongst  friends  and  well-wishers. 

"  When  the  scene  changes,  and  David's  troubles  force 
him  to  leave  his  house  in  despair, — Shimei  is  the  first  man 
we  hear  of  who  comes  out  against  him. 

"  The  wheel  turns  round  once  more  ;  Absalom  is  cast 
down,  and  David  returns  in  peace  : — Shimei  suits  his  be- 
haviour to  the  occasion,  and  is  the  first  man  also  who  hastes 
to  greet  him ; — and,  had  the  wheel  turn'd  round  a  hundred 
times,  Shimei,  I  dare  say,  in  every  period  of  its  rotation, 
would  have  been  uppermost. 

"O  Shimei!  would  to  Heaven,  when  thou  wast  slain, 
that  all  thy  family  had  been  slain  with  thee,  and  not  one  of 
thy  resemblance  left  !  but  ye  have  multiplied  exceedingly, 
and  replenished  the  earth  ;  and,  if  I  prophesy  rightly,  ye 
will  in  the  end  subdue  it ! 

"  There  is  not  a  character  in  the  world  which  has  so  had 
an  influence  upon  the  affairs  of  it,  as  this  of  Shimei.  Whilst 
power  meets  with  honest  checks,  and  the  evils  of  life  with 
honest  refuge,  the  world  will  never  be  undone  :  but  thou, 
Shimei,  hast  sapp'd  it  at  both  extremes  ;  for  thou  corruptest 


324      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

prosperity, — and  'tis  thou  who  hast  broken  the  heart  of 
poverty;  and,  so  long  as  worthless  spirits  can  be  ambitious 
ones,  'tis  a  character  we  shall  never  want.  O  !  it  infects 
the  court, — the  camp,  the  cabinet ! — it  infects  the  church  ! 
— go  where  you  will, — in  every  quarter,  in  every  profession, 
you  see  a  Shimei  following  the  wheels  of  the  fortunate 
through  thick  mire  and  clay  !  — 

"  — Haste,  Shimei ! — haste,  or  thou  wilt  be  undone  for 
ever. — Shimei  girdeth  up  his  loins  and  speedeth  after  him. 
— Behold  the  hand,  which  governs  everything,  takes  the 
wheels  from  off  his  chariot,  so  that  he  who  driveth,  driveth 
on  heavily. — Shimei  doubles  his  speed, — but  'tis  the  con- 
trary way ;  he  flies  like  the  wind  over  a  sandy  desert,  and 
the  place  thereof  shall  know  it  no  more  : — stay,  Shimei ! 
'tis  your  patron, — your  friend, — your  benefactor ;  'tis  the 
man  who  has  raised  you  from  the  dunghill ! — 'Tis  all  one  to 
Shimei :  Shimei  is  a  barometer  of  every  man's  fortune  ; 
marks  the  rise  and  fall  of  it,  with  all  the  variations  from 
scorching  hot  to  freezing  cold  upon  his  countenance  that 
the  smile  will  admit  of. — Is  a  cloud  upon  thy  affairs  ? — see, 
— it  hangs  over  Shimei's  brow. — Hast  thou  been  spoken  for 
to  the  king  or  the  captain  of  the  host  without  success  ? — 
Look  not  into  the  court-calendar  ; — the  vacancy  is  filled  up 
in  Shimei's  face. — Art  thou  in  debt? — though  not  to  Shimei, 
— no  matter; — the  worst  officer  of  the  law  shall  not  be 
more  insolent." 

But  we  speak  of  Sterne's  exordiums  ;  thus,  in  the 
case  of  Hezekiah  and  the  messengers : — 

"  *  And  he  said,  What  have  they  seen  in  thine  house  ?  and 
Hezekiah  answered.  All  the  things  that  are  in  my  house  have 
they  seen  ;  there  is  nothing  amongst  all  my  treasures  that  I 
have  not  shown  them.' 

" — And  where  was  the  harm,  you'll  say,  in  all  this  ?  " 


BILLINGSGATE  IN  THE  PULPIT.  325 

Again  : — 

**  *  For  we  trust  we  have  a  good  conscience.^ — 
'*  Trust ! — Trust  we  have  a  good  conscience  ! — Surely, 
you  will  say,  if  there  is  anything  in  this  life  which  a  man 
may  depend  upon,  and  to  the  knowledge  of  which  he  is 
capable  of  arriving  upon  the  most  indisputable  evidence,  it 
must  be  this  very  thing, — Whether  he  has  a  good  conscience, 
or  no. 

"  If  a  man  thinks  at  all,  he  cannot  well  be  a  stranger  to 
the  true  state  of  this  account : — He  must  be  privy  to  his 
own  thoughts  and  desires  ; — he  must  remember  his  past 
pursuits,  and  know  certainly  the  true  springs  and  motives 
which,  in  general,  have  governed  the  actions  of  his  life." 

Again  '.—^ 

'■^''  Despisest  thou  the  riches  of  His  goodness,  and  forbearance, 
and  long-suffering, — not  knowing  that  the  goodness  of  God 
leadeth  thee  to  repentance  ? ' 

"So  says  St.  Paul.     And  (Eccles.  viii.  11) — 

"  '  Because  sentence  against  an  evil  work  is  not  executed 
speedily,  therefore  the  heart  of  the  sons  of  men  is  fully  set  in 
them  to  do  evil.' 

"  Take  either  as  you  like  it,  you  will  get  nothing  by  the 
bargain." 

The  man  had  little  regard  for  the  delicacy  of 
anything  he  chose  to  say  in  the  pulpit  or  elsewhere; 
he  had  a  courageous  familiarity,  which  must  have 
been  confounding  to  rustic  hearers — and  such  for 
the  most  part  his  hearers  always  were.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone has  attempted  to  do  a  kindly  justice  to 
Laurence  Sterne  ;  but  read  a  sermon  on  the  Levite 
and  his  Concubine,  and  notice  what    sad   rubbish  the 


326      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Rabelais  of  the  English  pulpit  could  not  only  talk, 
but  print : — 

"  '  And  it  came  to  pass  in  those  days,  when  there  was  no 
king  in  Israel,  that  there  was  a  certain  Levite  sojourning  07i 
the  side  of  Mount  Ephraim,  who  took  unto  him  a  concubine.^ 

"  — A  coticubine  ! — but  the  text  accounts  for  it :  '  for  in 
those  days  there  was  no  king  in  Israel,'  and  the  Levite, 
you  will  say,  like  every  other  man  in  it,  did  what  was  right 
in  his  own  eyes  ; — and  so,  you  may  add,  did  his  concubine 
too, — '  for  she  played  the  whore  against  him,  and  went 
away.' 

*' — Then  shame  and  grief  go  with  her;  and  wherever  she 
seeks  a  shelter,  may  the  hand  of  justice  shut  the  door  against 
her. 

"Not  so ;  for  she  went  unto  her  father's  house  in  Bethlehem- 
judah,  and  was  with  him  four  whole  months. — Blessed 
interval  for  meditation  upon  the  fickleness  and  vanity  of 
this  world  and  its  pleasures  !  I  see  the  holy  man  upon  his 
knees, — with  hands  compressed  to  his  bosom,  and  with  up- 
lifted eyes,  thanking  Heaven  that  the  object  which  had  so 
long  shared  his  affections  was  fled  ! 

"  The  text  gives  a  different  picture  of  his  situation  :  *  for 
he  arose  and  went  after  her,  to  speak  friendly  to  her,  and 
to  bring  her  back  again,  having  his  servant  with  him,  and  a 
couple  of  asses  :  and  she  brought  him  unto  her  father's 
house  ;  and  when  the  father  of  the  damsel  saw  him,  he 
rejoiced  to  meet  him.' 

"  — A  most  sentimental  group  !  you'll  say ;  and  so  it  is, 
my  good  commentator,  but  the  world  talks  of  everything. 
Give  but  the  outlines  of  a  story, — let  Spleen  or  Prudery 
snatch  the  pencil,  and  they  will  finish  it  with  so  many  hard 
strokes,  and  with  so  dirty  a  colouring,  that  Candour  and 
Courtesy  will  sit  in  torture  as  they  look  at  it. — Gentle  and 
virtuous  spirits  !  ye  who  know  not  what  it  is  to  be  rigid 
interpreters,  but  of  your  own  failings, — to  you  I  address 


BILLINGSGATE  IN  THE  PULPIT.  327 

myself,  the  unhired  advocates  for  the  conduct  of  the  mis- 
guided,— Whence  is  it  that  the  world  is  more  jealous  of 
your  office?  How  often  must  ye  repeat  it,  'That  such  a 
one's  doing  so  or  so,'  is  not  sufficient  evidence  by  itself  to 
overthrow  the  accused  ! — that  our  actions  stand  surrounded 
with  a  thousand  circumstances  which  do  not  present  them- 
selves at  first  sight  ! — that  the  first  springs  and  motives 
which  impell'd  the  unfortunate  lie  deeper  still ! — and  that 
of  the  millions  which  every  hour  are  arraign'd,  thousands  of 
them  may  have  err'd  merely  from  the  head,  and  been 
actually  outwitted  into  evil !  and,  when  from  the  heart, — 
that  the  difficulties  and  temptations  under  which  they  acted, 
— the  force  of  the  passions, — the  suitableness  of  the  object, 
and  the  many  struggles  of  Virtue  before  she  fell, — may  be 
so  many  appeals  from  Justice  to  the  judgment-seat  of  Pity  ! 
"  Here  then  let  us  stop  a  moment,  and  give  the  story  of 
the  Levite  and  his  concubine  a  second  hearing." 

How  different  is  all  this  levity  from  a  singular 
exordium  we  remember  of  Bishop  Andrews,  to  a 
sermon  on  the  text.  Remember  Lot's  wife  (Luke  xvii. 
32)  :— 

"  The  words  are  few,  and  the  sentence  short ;  no  one  in 
Scripture  so  short.  But  it  fareth  with  sentences  as  with 
coins  :  in  coins,  they  that  are  in  smallest  compass  contain 
greatest  value,  are  best  esteemed ;  and  in  sentences,  those 
that  in  fewest  words  comprise  most  matters  are  most 
praised.  Which  as,  of  all  sentences,  it  is  true,  so  especially 
with  those  that  are  marked  with  memento.  In  them  the 
shorter  the  better ;  the  better,  and  the  better  carried  away  ; 
and  the  better  kept ;  and  the  better  called  for  when  we 
need  it.  And  such  is  this  here  of  rich  contents,  and  withal 
exceeding  compendious.  So  that  we  must  needs  be  without 
all  excuse  (it  being  but  three  words  and  five  syllables)  if  we 
do  not  remember  it." 


328      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHED. 

But  this  chapter  would  be  quite  incomplete  if  it 
did  not  refer  to  that  amazing  piece  of  spiritual 
ribaldry  William  Huntingdon,  "  S.S.,"  "  Sinner 
Saved"  In  a  droll  passage  in  one  of  his  writings  he 
tells  how  he  desired  to  attach  a  degree  to  his  name ; 
he  says  he  had  not  scholarship  enough  for  M.A.,  and 
that  he  was  too  poor  to  purchase  a  D.D.,  so  he 
mounted  the  "  S.S."  An  astonishing  man  was  William 
Huntingdon.  Robert  Southey  did  not  disdain  to 
write  a  fairly  copious  life  of  him  in  an  ancient 
number  of  the  Quarterly  Review  :  the  reader  may  be 
sure  that  Southey  did  not  dip  his  pen  in  the  ink 
of  human  kindness;  but  it  is  a  thoroughly  interesting 
resum^  of  the  coal-heaver's  life  ;  and  that  life  was 
a  queer  one,  a  curious  compound  of  romance  and 
ribaldry.  Southey  charitably  says,  "  On  the  whole, 
he  must  have  produced  some  good  amongst  the 
sheep,  whom  he  folded  chiefly  for  the  sake  of  their 
wool."  As  in  the  case  of  South,  Southey — almost 
our  most  perfect  master  of  pure  English — gives  to 
Huntingdon  the  honour  of  writing  and  speaking  "  in 
a  plain,  straightforward,  idiomatic  style,  with  a  vigour 
and  manliness  which  can  never  be  attained  by  any 
artifices  of  composition."  Huntingdon's  "  Bank  of 
Faith  "  is  a  marvellous  production  ;  there  is  nothing 
like  it  in  the  whole  Bibliotheca  of  knavery  and  fana- 
ticism. It  is  rather  difficult  to  realise  that  a  cha- 
racter like  Huntingdon  had  any  moral  sense  at  all. 
A  religious  man,  or  one  who  regarded  himself  as 
such,  without  any  moral  sense !  is  that  a  human 
impossibility  "i  Well,  certainly,  in  reading  the  life 
of  Huntingdon,  we  are  compelled  to  look  this  most 
odd  problem  in  the  face.       But,  indeed,  in  his  case 


Billingsgate  in  the  pulpit.       329 

the  problem  is  perhaps  not  very  difficult  ;  he  was 
absolutely  an  Antinomian  ;  he  seems  to  us  a  most 
impudent  quack,  and  trader  in  faith  ;  yet  we 
possess  all  his  works,  spread  over  more  than  twenty 
volumes,  and  many  pages  of  them  have  we  read, 
and  those  of  his  later  years  with  a  considerable 
amount  of  enjoyment ;  it  must  be  said  that  many  are 
toned  in  a  high  key  of  nerv^ous  eloquence,  and 
human  nature  is  so  strange  a  morsel  that  there  are 
passages  of  experience  which  surely  must  be 
regarded  not  only  as  graphic,  but  instructive.  The 
"  Bank  of  Faith,"  which  many  regard  as  his  chief 
performance,  is  to  us — we  confess  it — as  detestable  as 
it  is  queer  and  curious  ;  we  pretty  much  think  with 
Southey  that  the  "Bank  of  Faith"  illustrates  how  the 
perfect  enthusiast  may  imperceptibly  ripen  into  the 
perfect  rogue.  It  is  something  awful  to  think 
of  what  he  calls  his  "  precious  answers  to  prayer." 
*'  I  found  God's  promises,"  he  says,  "  to  be  the 
Christian's  bank-note."  He  asked  God  for  a  guinea, 
and  it  came  ;  for  a  great-coat,  and  it  came  ;  for  a 
horse,  and  it  came  ;  sometimes  game  and  fish  came, 
and  it  is  quite  clear  that  Southey  thought — what  we 
think — that  the  game  and  fish  came  rather  in  the 
way  of  poaching,  or  what  looks,  in  the  story  which 
he  tells,  very  much  like  it.  Worst  of  all,  a  malignant 
delight  in  the  evils  which  followed  those  who  opposed 
him  seems  everywhere  to  trail  after  his  pen.  The 
people  at  Thames  Ditton  did  not  receive  his  word  ; 
and  "  I  much  question,"  says  this  paragon  of  effron- 
tery, "  if  God  ever  sends  His  word  there  again  ;  they 
are  left  almost  as  inexcusable  as  Chorazin  and 
Capernaum."      Dr.  Ryland,  "  that  highly  respectable 


330      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Baptist  minister,"  as  Southey  calls  him,  said  some 
rather  depreciating  words,  declining  to  lend  him  his 
pulpit ;  Huntingdon  threatened  him  with  Divine 
judgment,  and  bade  him  beware  lest  God  should 
take  away  his  speech,  or  his  breath,  as  He  had  done 
in  other  instances. 

The  funniest  passage  in  his  life  of  faith  occurs 
after  he  had  besought  the  Lord  to  give  him  a  horse  ; 
he  says, — 

"  Having  had  the  horse  for  some  time,  and  riding  a  great 
deal  every  week,  I  soon  wore  my  breeches  out^  as  they  were 
not  fit  to  ride  in  ;  I  hope  the  reader  will  excuse  my  mention- 
ing the  word  breeches,  which  I  should  have  avoided  had 
not  this  passage  of  Scripture  obtruded  into  my  mind  just 
as  I  had  resolved  in  my  own  thoughts  not  to  mention  this 
kind  providence  of  God :  '  And  thou  shalt  make  them 
linen  breeches  to  cover  their  nakedness ;  from  the  loins 
even  unto  the  thighs  shall  they  reach.  And  they  shall  be 
upon  Aaron  and  upon  his  sons  when  they  come  into  the 
tabernacle  of  the  congregation,  or  when  they  come  near 
unto  the  altar  to  minister  in  the  holy  place ;  that  they  bear 
not  iniquity  and  die.  It  shall  be  a  statute  for  ever  unto 
him  and  his  seed  after  him '  (Exod.  xxviii.  42,  43).  By 
which,  and  three  others  (namely,  Ezek.  xliv.  18,  Lev.  vi. 
10,  and  Lev.  xvi.  4),  I  saw  that  it  was  no  crime  to 
mention  the  word  breeches,  nor  the  way  in  which  God  sent 
them  to  me ;  Aaron  and  his  sons  being  clothed  entirely  by 
Providence,  and  as  God  Himself  condescended  to  give 
orders  what  they  should  be  made  of,  and  how  they  should 
be  cut.  And  I  believe  the  same  God  ordered  mine,  as  I 
trust  it  will  appear  in  the  following  history, 

"The  Scripture  tells  us  to  call  no  man  master,  for  one 
is  our  Master,  even  Christ.  I  therefore  told  my  most 
bountiful  and  ever-adored  Master  what  I  wanted ;  and  He, 


BILLINGSGATE  IN  THE  PULPIT.  331 

who  stripped  Adam  and  Eve  of  their  fig-leaved  aprons,* 
and  made  coats  of  skins  and  clothed  them;  and  who 
clothes  the  grass  of  the  field,  which  to-day  is  and  to-morrow 
is  cast  into  the  oven ;  must  clothe  us,  or  we  shall  soon  go 
naked ;  and  so  Israel  found  it,  when  God  took  away  his 
wool  and  his  flax,  which  He  gave  to  cover  their  nakedness, 
and  which  they  prepared  for  Baal,  for  which  iniquity  were 
their  skirts  discovered,  and  their  heels  made  bare  (Jer.xiii.  22). 
"  I  often  made  very  free  in  my  prayers  with  my  invaluable 
Master  for  this  favour ;  but  He  still  kept  me  so  amazingly 
poor  that  I  could  not  get  them  at  any  rate.  At  last  I  was 
determined  to  go  to  a  friend  of  mine  at  Kingston,  who  is 
of  that  branch  of  business,  to  bespeak  a  pair,  and  to  get 
him  to  trust  me  until  my  Master  sent  me  money  to  pay 
him.  I  was  that  day  going  to  London,  fully  determined  to 
bespeak  them,  as  I  rode  through  the  town.  However,  when 
I  passed  the  shop  I  forgot  it ;  but  when  I  came  to  London 
I  called  on  Mr.  Croucher,  a  shoemaker  in  Shepherd's 
Market,  who  told  me  a  parcel  was  left  there  for  me,  but 
what  it  was  he  knew  not.  I  opened  it,  and,  behold,  there 
was  a  pair  of  leather  breeches,  with  a  note  in  them !  the 
substance  of  which  was,  to  the  best  of  my  remembrance, 
as  follows : — 

"  *  Sir, — I  have  sent  you  a  pair  of  breeches,  and  hope 
they  will  fit.  I  beg  your  acceptance  of  them ;  and,  if  they 
want  any  alteration,  leave  in  a  note  what  the  alteration  is, 
and  I  will  call  in  a  few  days  and  alter  them. 

"•J-  S.' 

"  I  tried  them  on,  and  they  fitted  as  well  as  if  I  had  been 
measured  for  them,  at  which  I  was  amazed,  having  never 
been  measured  by  any  leather  breeches-maker  in  London. 
I  wrote  an  answer  to  the  note  to  this  effect : 

"  *  Sir, — I  received  your  present,  and  thank  you  for  it. 

*  Probably  Huntingdon  did  not  know  the  "Breeches  Bible," 
which  for  aprons  translates  the  word  breeches. 


Si2      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

I  was  going  to  order  a  pair  of  leather  breeches  to  be  made, 
because  I  did  not  know  till  now  that  my  Master  had 
bespoke  them  of  you.  They  fit  very  well,  which  fully 
convinces  me  that  the  same  God,  who  moved  thy  heart  to 
give,  guided  thy  hand  to  cut,  because  He  perfectly  knows 
my  size,  having  clothed  me  in  a  miraculous  manner  for 
near  five  years.  When  you  are  in  trouble,  Sir,  I  hope  you 
will  tell  my  Master  of  this,  and  what  you  have  done  for  me, 
and  He  will  repay  you  with  honour.' 

"  This  is  as  near  as  I  am  able  to  relate  it,  and  I  added, 
"  *  I  cannot  make  out  I.  S.  unless  I  put  I.  for  Israelite 
indeed,  and  S.  for  Sincerity,  because  you  did  not  sound 
a  trumpet  before  you,  as  the  hypocrites  do.'" 

Well,  in  the  same  manner  he  purveyed  by  prayer, 
that  is,  he  gave  hints  of  what  he  vi^anted  at  proper 
times,  seasons,  and  places,  and  so  he  got  rugs  and 
blankets,  and  doeskin  gloves,  and  a  horseman's  coat ; 
and  so,  at  last,  rose  the  great  Providence  Chapel,  in 
Gray's  Inn  Road,  in  London,  and  William  Hunting- 
don became  the  great  pulpit  marvel,  and  celebrity  of 
his  age ;  and,  by-and-bye,  he  married  Lady  Saunder- 
son  towards  the  close  of  his  career  ;  and  he  kept  his 
chariot,  but  still  mounted  upon  the  carriage  panels 
W.  H.,  "  S.S." 

One  of  the  famous  episodes  of  his  life  was  his 
grand  quarrel  with  Rowland  Hill.  Rowland  Hill 
had  said  that,  if  he  preached  such  doctrines  as 
Huntingdon,  he  should  expect  horns  to  grow  out  from 
his  head,  and  his  feet  to  become  cloven  ; — dear  old 
Rowley  !  he  got  an  Oliver  for  his  Rowland  !  Hun- 
tingdon wrote  to  him,  "  Friend  Rowland,  I  pray  that 
you  may  discover  less  pepper,  and  more  purity ; 
less  heat,  and  more  holiness  ;  that  you  may  perform 


BILLINGSGATE  IN  THE  PULPIT.  333 

more  good  works,  and  say  less  about  them,  and 
part  with  your  tea-table  stories  for  heavenly  tidings, 
and  your  old  wives'  fables  for  Gospel  doctrines  ; 
sound  the  Gospel  trumpet  more,  and  your  own 
trumpet  less.  This  is  the  prayer  of  him  who 
frankly  forgives  you  all  that  is  past,  and  hopes  to 
take  patiently  all  that  is  to  come."  Rowland  was  in 
a  rage,  and  he  went  to  talk  with  his  old  chum, 
Matthew  Wilkes,  about  the  dire  revenge  with  which 
he  would  visit  the  coal-heaver.  "  Rowley,"  said  the 
saintly  old  cynic,  "  you  leave  him  alone,  or  else  he  will 
belabour  you  so  with  that  coal-heaver's  sack  of  his 
that  he  will  not  leave  a  single  part  of  your  vene- 
rable old  body  without  beating  it  black  and  blue  !  " 
So  Rowland  contented  himself  with  going  home, 
taking  up  Huntingdon's  pamphlet  with  a  pair  of  tongs, 
ringing  for  his  servant,  and  teUing  her  that  he  did 
not  dare  to  touch  the  thing,  but  that  she  was  to  take 
it  downstairs,  tongs  and  all,  to  light  the  kitchen  fire. 
Huntingdon  died,  in  1 8 1 3,  at  Tunbridge  Wells,  and 
was  buried  at  Lewes,  where  his  grave  is  still  visited 
by  many  who  profess  to  hold  his  memory  in  honour. 
We,  with  no  particular  feelings  beyond  those  of 
curiosity,  have  read  the  epitaph  indited  by  himself 
for  his  tomb : 

"  Here  lies  the  Coal-heaver, 
Beloved  of  his  God,  but  abhorred  of  men. 
The  omniscient  Judge 
At  the  Grand  Assize  shall  ratify  and 
Confirm  this  to  the 
Confusion  of  many  thousands ; 
For  England  and  its  Metropolis  shall  know 
That  there  hath  been  a  prophet 
Among  them." 


334      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

The  reader  must  not  regard  these  pages  as  giving 
a  sufficient  account  of  this  Evangelical  Cobbett,  a 
cheap-John  in  the  pulpit,  as  Cobbett  was  something 
of  that  character  in  politics,  a  pulpit  charlatan  from 
some  points  of  view,  but  something  more,  and  better. 
His  works  are  voluminous,  scarce,  and  still  fetch  a 
high  price,  and  their  vigorous  and  frequently  racy- 
English  will  repay  perusal,  and  might  even  become  a 
model  of  idiomatic  strength. 


CHAPTER    XL 

JAMES    WELLS, 

WE  suppose  that  the  strongest  illustration,  in 
our  own  day,  of  that  character  which  the  pre- 
ceding pages  have  immediately  attempted  to  delineate, 
would  be  found  in  the  subject  of  the  following  sketch. 
Probably  a  large  number  of  our  readers  will  wonder 
who  the  bearer  of  the  name  we  have  placed  at  the 
head  of  this  chapter  may  be,  and  what  may  be  his 
claims  to  such  an  acknowledgment  ;  it  is  equally 
probable  that  many  others  of  our  readers  may  have 
quite  a  sufficient  acquaintance  with  the  gentleman, 
and  may  altogether  condemn  our  sense  and  taste  in 
making  him  the  subject  of  any  criticisms.  Enough, 
in  justification,  to  say  that  James  Wells  did  nothing 
during  the  greater  part  of  a  long  life  but  preach, 
and  that  his  funeral,  a  few  years  since,  was  such  as 
scarcely  ever  attends  the  remains  of  the  most 
eminent  and  illustrious  men.  "  Never,"  wrote  the 
Daily  Nezvs,  "  was  there  on  the  Surrey  side  of  the 
water  such  a  scene  as  that  which  was  witnessed  yes- 
terday afternoon.  '  This  is  worse  than  Thanksgiving 
Day ! '  said  a  policeman."  In  Mr.'  Wells's  chapel, 
when  the  coffin  was  brought  in,  there  were  nearly  three 
thousand  persons  present,  all  in  mourning,  the  greater 
number  in  tears ;  and  then,  for  the  further  service  at 


336      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

the  cemetery,  some  miles  distant,  while  a  special  train 
was  engaged  to  convey  numbers,  every  kind  of 
vehicle  was  in  request,  and  the  roads  and  pavements 
to  Peckham  were  thronged  by  the  crowds  walking. 
So  was  James  Wells  ushered  along  to  his  last  rest- 
ing-place. 

Most  manifest  it  was,  and  is,  that  during  his  life 
and  course  of  ministration  he  was  the  model  preacher 
of  some,  and  not  an  inconsiderable  number  of  persons; 
so  in  this  chapter  he  shall  be  ours.  If  his  spirit  have 
any  consciousness  of  such  transactions,  a  gracious 
change  must  have  passed  over  it,  or  it  will  be  very 
cross  to  find  itself  in  such  companionship.  James 
Wells  for  considerably  more  than  forty  years  was 
the  chosen  and  designated  prophet  of  the  highest 
of  all  high-Calvinists.  During  the  greater  part  of 
those  years  he  ministered  in  the  Surrey  Tabernacle, 
itself  a  large  commodious  building,  and  always 
crowded  to  hear  the  prophet's  voice  ;  but  some  years 
since  a  much  more  splendid  edifice  was  erected. 
The  denomination  of  the  order  of  opinion  represented 
by  Mr.  Wells  boasts  very  few  generous  hearts,  and 
only  a  scantling  of  very  capable  pockets  ;  but,  reared 
at  a  large  cost,  the  building  was  out  of  debt  as  soon 
as  opened,  and  some  of  our  own  friends  have 
described  to  us  how  every  little  seamstress's  fingers, 
and  every  hyper-Calvinist  washerwoman's  brawny 
arms  were  actively  employed  to  furnish  the  bricks 
for  the  new  Tabernacle.  There  Mr.  Wells  con- 
tinued his  ministrations  until  about  eighteen  months 
before  his  death,  when  the  painful,  lingering  disease 
set  in  which  has  borne  his  body  to  the  grave, 
and    his    spirit,    we    have    no    doubt, — though    he 


JAMES   WELLS.  337 

would  have  no  such  charitable  hopes  for  us, — to 
some  wider  heaven  than  it  was  ever  able  to  com- 
prehend on  earth. 

Many,  many  years  have  passed  away  since  we  had 
much  acquaintance  with  the  voice  and  word  of  James 
Wells.  When  we  were  quite  young  we  were  some- 
times in  the  habit  of  looking  in  to  listen,  either  at 
his  own  chapel,  or,  when  he  was  engaged  in  preach- 
ing occasional  anniversary  sermons,  in  other  places. 
Since  then  our  experience  of  preachers  has  been 
tolerably  extensive,  but  James  Wells  stands  at  the 
head  of  all  whom  we  can  call  to  mind  for  drollery, 
vulgarity,  and  a  certain  coarse  shrewdness,  which  was 
wont  to  keep  his  congregation  chuckling  and  shaking 
their  heads  with  remarkable  self-satisfied  unction, 
realising  in  the  grim  old  Rehoboth,  or  Tabernacle,  the 
Northern  Farmer's  self-gratulatory  sentiment,  "What 
a  man  he  be,  surely !  "  And  this,  with  many,  is  a 
sufficient  account  of  James  Wells  ;  but  it  is  by  no 
means  a  sufficient  account.  Mere  rubbish  will  not 
hold  together  ;  mere  coarseness  and  drollery  could 
never  have  sustained  the  preacher  in  his  place  so  long, 
or  have  given  to  him  such  a  funeral,  such  a  genuine, 
hearty  outbreak  of  grief  as  that  in  which  at  least 
thirty  thousand  persons  expressed  their  sorrow  because 
their  master  was  taken  from  their  head  that  day. 
He  was  a  strange  creature,  surely  not  without  certain 
qualities  not  altogether  inimitable.  As  to  his  manner, 
nothing  can  be  said  for  it ;  it  was  rugged  and  jerky, 
unrelieved  by  a  single  grace  of  contour.  He  was 
rather  tall  and  thin,  and  his  face  and  appearance  were 
not  unimpressive ;  but  the  face  had  a  grim  biliousness, 
a  sort  of  glowering  blackness  of  darkness,  which,  is 

22 


338      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

our  younger  years,  was  quite  as  effective  as  the 
severest  logic,  or  the  most  affecting  instincts,  in 
driving  us  away  from  the  dreary  creed  of  hyper- 
Calvinism.  His  language,  like  his  manner,  was 
jerky.  It  would  never  appear  that  he  had  the 
remotest  care  for  any  graces  or  grandeur  of  ex- 
pression, was  probably  quite  insensible  to  them. 
Sentiment  never  approached  near  to  him,  and  to  all 
matters  of  imagination  and  fancy  he  gave  a  wide 
berth  ;  and  yet  his  language,  in  a  sense,  was  good  ; 
it  was  hard,  vigorous,  every  sentence  perfectly  un- 
mistakable, and  all  alive  with  reality  and  conviction. 
We  should  think,  probably  a  worse-tempered  mortal 
never  found  his  way  into  a  pulpit.  He  pleasantly 
testifies  of  himself,  "  I  am  sometimes  as  ill-tempered 
as  a  witch  ;  but  even  then  I  am  just  as  righteous  in 
Christ  as  I  am  when  I  am  on  the  mount  of  trans- 
figuration, wrapt  in  the  revelations  of  an  eternal 
world."  It  was  in  truth  a  hard,  gnarled  set  of 
features,  a  very  Peter  Bell  kind  of  countenance,  as 
the  poet  says, — 

**  As  if  the  man  had  leant  his  face. 
In  many  a  solitary  place, 
Between  the  wind  and  open  sky," 

which  was  also  very  likely  to  be  true  ;  for,  like  Peter 
Bell,  James  Wells  had  been,  as  our  readers  may  be 
aware,  a  carrier,  or  the  driver  of  a  carrier's  waggon,  on 
one  of  the  great  London  roads.  To  him,  in  this  sphere 
of  life,  came,  all  those  years  ago,  his  prophet's  call. 
It  is  to  be  thought  he  did  not  enter  on  the  work  of 
the  ministry  without  some  furniture  of  knowledge. 
The    accomplished    Edward  Andrews    took  him  in 


JAMES   WELLS.  339 


hand  a  little,  and  he  was  probably  familiar  with  his 
Greek  and  Hebrew  Bible  ;  and  we  are  quite  aware, 
from  our  own  knowledge  of  him,  that  if  he  did  not 
read  extensively,  he  read,  and  sought  after  a  certain 
rare  kind  of  old  books,  which  perhaps  had  not  much 
relation  to  the  formation  of  a  higher  judgment,  but 
which  aided  in  ripening  those  spiritual  fancies  which 
he  loved  to  see  depending  from  his  vinery,  and  to 
carry  in  for  the  gratification  of  the  luscious  taste  of 
the  frequenters  of  his  Tabernacle, 

It  is  very  noteworthy  how  deep, — even  how 
broad  and  widely  spread, — is  the  stratum  of  hard 
high-Calvinism  in  English  society.  Let  a  com- 
petent, strong,  clear  voice  utter  forth  its  doctrines, 
it  is  quite  amazing  how  numerous  are  the  followers, 
how  glad  the  listeners.  Is  it  not  to  be  confessed, 
is  not  the  reason  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
Calvinism  is  the  theology  of  satisfactions — in  truth, 
the  only  conservative  theology  ?  Not  much  of  this 
probably  entered  into  the  minds  of  Mr.  Wells's 
innumerable  hearers  ;  but,  in  some  way  thus,  we, 
who  seek  for  the  rationale  of  things,  are  to  account 
for  the  large  following  such  leaders  have.  The 
creed  and  its  believers  have,  to  most  who  are  out- 
side of  the  charmed  circle,  a  grimly  forbidding  aspect. 
"  Grace  be  with  all  them  who  love  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,"  forms  no  part  of  the  confession  of  these 
saints  ;  the  audacity  with  which  multitudes  are 
dismissed  is  amusing.  We  have  before  us  a 
singularly  illustrative  passage  from  one  of  Mr. 
Wells's  sermons  : — 

"  Well,  I  can  tell  you  this  upon  this  matter,  that  I  never 


340      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

did  receive  a  person  yet  as  belonging  to  God  only  just  as 
they  are  made  manifest  to  my  conscience  (!).  They  must 
give  me  some  reason  for  the  hope  that  is  in  them ;  they 
must  tell  me  something  about  the  way  in  which  they  found 
out  that  they  were  sinners,  and  something  about  the  way  in 
which  the  Lord  was  pleased  to  manifest  His  mercy  to  them. 
If  they  can  give  me  no  account  of  this  humbling  work,  this 
breaking-down,  this  pulling-to-pieces  work,  and  this  scatter- 
ing work,  this  soul-trouble  work,  and  can  give  me  no  account 
of  how  the  first  ray  of  hope  came  into  their  souls,  can  give 
me  no  account  of  how  the  first  manifestation  of  mercy  to 
their  souls  raised  them  up — then  how  am  I  to  have  a 
union  of  soul  with  them  ?  There  is  a  man  who  is  a  child  of 
God,  and  he  stands  manifested  to  my  conscience  as  such. 
Well,  that  man  has  an  old  man  as  well  as  a  new,  and  circum- 
stances may  be  so,  that  he  may  treat  me  most  barbarously, 
most  shamefully,  most  unchristianly,  most  unjustifiably, 
and  most  unscripturally.  I  have  seen  this  among  the 
people  of  God,  treating  each  other  in  this  way.  There 
comes  another  man,  who  is  not  manifest  to  my  conscience  as 
a  good  man.  That  man  treats  me  kindly  ;  that  man  treats 
me  more  like  a  Christian  than  the  real  Christian  does  ;  that 
man  does  everything  he  can  for  my  comfort,  and  shows 
every  possible  feeling  of  friendship  to  me ;  but  notwith- 
standing all  this,  I  cannot  put  one  in  the  place  of  the  other. 
Now,  which  is  the  good  man  of  these  two  ?  Which  is  the 
real  Christian  of  these  two?  I  must  still  say,  though  it 
may  seem  paradoxical  to  some,  that  that  man,  notwithstand- 
ing all  his  inconsistent  conduct  towards  me,  is  a  good  man ; 
and  the  other,  notwithstanding  all  his  kindness  to  me,  I 
cannot  see  in  him  the  grace  of  God.  I  can  see  in  him  a 
noble  spirit ;  I  can  see  in  him  a  great  deal  that  I  admire  \ 
and  what  the  one  has  done  is  almost  enough  to  make  me 
reject  him,  and  what  the  other  has  done  seems  almost 
enough  to  make  me  try  and  flatter  myself  into  the  notion 
that  he  is  a  Christian.     Ah,  this  is  a  very  awkward  position 


JAMES   WELLS.  341 

to  be  put  in  ;  but  I  have  been  in  it,  and  no  doubt  some  of 
you  have  as  well."  « 

Probably  most  of  our  readers  have  felt  that  there 
is  a  side  of  truth  to  this  sufficiently  broad  and 
sweeping  kind  of  talk,  to  the  extent,  at  any  rate,  of 
admitting  that  a  life  of  natural  amiability  may  be  very 
pleasant,  and  yet  very  unreal  ;  and  a  life  of  intense 
conviction  may  have  many  very  unamiable,  and 
even  undesirable,  not  to  say  dishonourable  character- 
istics. But  it  is  assuredly  remarkable  to  find  men 
of  Mr.  Wells's  school  utterly  reversing  the  Apostle's 
rule  ;  he  modestly  spoke  of  "  commending  himself  to 
every  man's  conscience  ;  "  Mr.  Wells  very  remark- 
ably makes  his  conscience  the  limitation  of  all 
spiritual  commendation.  Surely  the  arrogance 
would  be  very  dreadful  if  it  were  not  so  very  droll 
and  amusing.  Of  course  such  a  cast  of  sentiment 
produces  a  narrow,  selfish,  coarse,  and  exclusive 
character ;  another  type  of  character  would  be 
inconsistent  with  such  a  cast  of  opinion  ;  hence  the 
preaching  of  the  doctrine  of  election,  sometimes  in  a 
broader,  higher,  better,  purer,  and  more  evangelical 
sense,  but  more  frequently  in  a  narrow,  ignorant, 
perverted,  and,  we  will  venture  to  say,  impious  sense, 
constituted  a  large  staple  of  Mr.  Wells's  ministra- 
tions. With  this,  also,  heavy  denunciations  of  what 
he  called  the  "  Dutj-Faith  Doctrine,"  as  in  the 
following  delicious  piece  of  ignorance. 

"Had  the  register  of  heaven  ever  been  shown  to  Ishmael? 
And  did  the  great  Creator  say  to  him,  '  Well,  Ishmael,  will 
you  have  your  name  there  or  not?'  And  because  he  would 
not  be  a  free  son,  was  he  cast  out  ?     No,  you  say,  I  can't 


342      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


admit  that ;  that  is  just  Duty-Faith.  I  am  just  now  strip- 
ping Duty-Faith  naked,  and  that's  just  what  it  is.  If  an 
angel  from  heaven  came  and  preached  Duty- Faith,  let  him 
be  accursed." 

This  is  tolerably  strong  and  tall  talk.  Elsewhere 
he  says, — 

"We see  that  there  is  no  authority  for  the  doctrine  that 
it  is  the  duty  of  all  men,  indeed,  it  is  not  the  duty  of  any 
man,  savingly  to  believe  in  Christ." 

Such  words  as  these  show  plainly  enough  what  a 
sad  hash  ignorance  can  make  when  by  its  crotchets  it 
perverts  even  the  truth  itself.  Such  extracts  as 
these  show  with  what  justice  it  has  been  said,  "An 
ignorant  Arminian  preacher  blunders  through  his 
system  in  a  tolerable  manner,  but  a  Calvinist  makes 
dreadful  work."  Such  extracts  also  show  how, 
theoretically,  such  teaching  as  Mr.  Wells's  seems  to 
release  him  from  any  responsibility  as  before  God. 
No  doubt  these  aspects  of  doctrine  gave  to  Mr. 
Wells  a  large  measure  of  his  popularity,  this,  con- 
joined to  a  rugged  vernacular  speech  very  well  fitted 
to  meet  the  ears  and  the  tastes  of  those  who  would 
be  likely  to  find  such  doctrine  to  be  refreshing.  It  is  a 
marked  peculiarity  of  this  school  of  preachers  that 
it  indulges  in  warm  and  hearty  vituperation  of  all 
other  ministers;  it  delights  in  some  coarse,  rude, 
ignorant  pun,  even  upon  the  personal  name. 
William  Irons,  a  minister  of  this  order,  of  great 
celebrity,  some  years  since,  at  Camberwell,  took  posses- 
sion of  his  pulpit  after  the  chapel  had  been  closed 
for  repairs;  and,  referring  to  the  ministers  of  other 


JAMES   WELLS.  343 


churches  in  his  immediate  neighbourhood,  he  said  to 
his  people,  "  Well,  you  have  had  a  famous  time  for 
running  about,  and  where  have  you  been  to  ?  I 
don't  know,  but  if  you  have  been  to  Dr.  Steane  "  (an 
eminent  Baptist),  "  I  suppose  he's  washed  you  ;  and 
if  you  have  been  to  John  Burnet's,  he  has  dried 
you  ;  and  if  you  have  been  to  George  Clayton's,  he 
starched  you.  But  now  you  have  come  to  me, 
and  I'll  mangle  you,  and  then  I'll  iron  you." 

Well  do  we  remember,  when  not  much  more  than 
a  child, — a  mere  young  boy, — looking  in,  one 
Thursday  evening,  in  our  neighbourhood,  to  hear 
one  of  these  celebrated  fathers  of  the  faithful.  Our 
young  sensibilities  were  utterly  shocked  to  find,  in  a 
certain  portion  of  the  discourse,  every  venerable 
name  in  the  town  punned  upon,  and  pelted  by  abuse, 
and  made  to  contribute  its  quota  of  mirth  and 
jocularity  to  the  discourse.  James  Wells  played  his 
part  in  this  pleasant  game,  in  which  the  Gospel  was 
made  to  grin  through  a  horse  collar.  James  Sher- 
man was  the  greatly  beloved  and  very  tender-hearted 
minister  of  Surrey  Chapel,  which,  as  most  of  our 
readers  know,  was  a  large  circular  building.  Mr. 
Wells  reckoned  him  up  in  a  well-known  epigram  ; 
"  Jimmy  of  the  Round  House  never  preached  a 
gospel  sermon  in  all  his  life."  Nor  was  he  much 
more  courteous  to  Mr.  Sherman's  predecessor  ;  when 
his  funeral  sermon  was  preached  by  William  Jay,  he 
spoke  of  the  service  from  the  pulpit  as  "  a  big  Jay 
chattering  upon  a  little  Hill."  It  does  not  take  any 
special  state  of  grace  to  enjoy  this  kind  of  joking, 
and  there  are  people  who  like  it.  Our  preacher 
says, 


344      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

*'  There  are  half-way  ministers :  they  will  sometimes  preach 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  a  good  bit  of  truth  ;  and  some  of 
their  hearers,  in  that  part  of  the  sermon,  get  such  a  peep  at 
the  truth  that  they  can't  make  the  other  part  of  the  sermon 
go  down,  and  they  are  obliged  to  leave  that  sandy  fuUer's- 
earth  concern,  and  go  where  they  can  meet  with  pure  bread." 

Again  he  says, 

"I  don't  care  what  people  call  me,  so  long  as  I  am 
enjoying  the  truth.  As  good  Romaine  says  :  'While  other 
people  are  grumbling  about  it,  I  am  enjoying  it.'  This 
manna  is  white  in  colour;  ah,  there  is  no  adulteration  here; 
what  there  is  in  the  bread  we  eat  nowadays,  mercy  knows, 
— I  don't, — I  know  they  make  some  of  the  loaves  very  hard 
to  squeeze  the  water  of  the  potatoes  and  rice  out  of  them. 
And  what  we  eat,  mercy  knows, — I  don't, — they  call  it  bread ; 
but  here  in  this  bread  of  life  there  is  no  adulteration  :  it  is 
pure  free-giace  bread,  never  hurt  any  one  yet,  and  never 
will,  depend  upon  it." 

If  our  readers  were  not  aware  of  it  before,  such 
illustrations  we  suppose  to  be  sufficient,  as  setting 
forth  the  coarse  and  vulgar  wit  of  the  man. 

Very  much  of  the  objection  to  humour  as  a 
teacher  results  from  its  being  very  frequently  con- 
founded with  vulgarity  :  but  vulgarity  is  coarse  and 
sensual,  humour  is  refined  and  spiritual  ;  vulgarity  is 
animal,  humour  is  human.  We  listened  to  a  man 
like  James  Wells,  who  had  a  congregation  of  from 
twelve  to  sixteen  hundred  persons  constantly  listen- 
ing to  him;  we  heard  him  Spiritualising  a  Wheel- 
barrow ! — describing  his  own  power  in  analysing  the 
subterfuges  of  sin,  "  because  he  was  like  the  old 
woman   who,    having  been  in  the    coal-hole,    knew 


JAMES   WELLS.  345 

where  to  look  for  her  daughter !  " — likening  "  the 
Arminian  theology  to  milk  and  water,  and  the 
Gospel  dispensation  to  fine  old  crusted  port."  Here 
is  a  choice  specimen  of  vulgarity. 

"  The  other  day,  brethren,"  said  Mr.  Wells,  "  I  met  the 
Devil.  *  Good-morning,  Wells,'  said  he.  *  Good-morning, 
Devil,'  said  I,  a  little  bit  suspicious.  '  Are  you  getting  on 
pretty  well  yonder  at  the  Tabernacle  ?  '  said  he.  *  Well,' 
said  I,  'ye-es,  pretty  well;  but  what's  that  to  you,  Devil?' 
*  I  should  think  now,'  said  he,  '  that  really  you  are  getting 
on  very  well.  You've  got  a  good  congregation.'  'Well,' 
said  I,  *yes,  I  have,  Devil.'  'A  good  number  of  carriage- 
people,  eh,  Wells  ?  '  '  There  are  carriage-people.  What 
of  that.  Devil  ? '  '  Ah  ! '  said  he,  *  all  the  pews  let,  eh. 
Wells  ? '  *  Yes,  Devil,'  said  I,  *  all  the  pews  are  let ;  not  a 
sitting  to  be  had.'  '  Then,'  said  the  Devil,  '  I  should  say, 
Wells,  you're  making  a  thorough  good  thing  of  it.'  Ah  ! 
brethren,  I  told  the  Devil  I  had  a  large  congregation ;  that 
many  of  you  were  rich ;  that  all  the  sittings  were  let ;  but  I 
took  care  not  to  let  him  know  how  many  of  you  hadn't  paid 
up  your  pew-rents." 

Rubbish  like  this  is  composed  of  mingled 
blasphemy,  vulgarity,  and  absurdity.  We  say,  the 
man  who  can  be  guilty  of  this  is  not  enough  in 
earnest  to  be  humorous  ;  that  is,  to  have  a  real 
perception  of  the  nicer  and  finer  shades  which  we 
denominate  humour.  Such  a  man  would  do  to  make 
a  mob  of  bumpkins  laugh  at  a  village  fair — may 
be  a  sort  of  "  cheap-John  "  among  preachers  ;  but 
we  call  him  a  humorist  who,  like  Cervantes,  can 
shatter  to  pieces  an  already  diseased  and  dying  error  ; 
like  Richter,  distil  from  laughter  the  wisdom  of  the 


346      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

universe  ;  or,  like  Chaucer,  paint  life-portraits  of  such 
true  beauty  as  to  last  through  all  time. 

We  dare  not  mean  to  imply,  however,  that  this 
was  all.  With  such  things  as  we  have  quoted  every 
sermon  abounded,  but  every  sermon  abounded  also, 
or  most  did  so,  with  better  things  ;  and,  evil  as  was 
the  spirit  of  exclusiveness,  coarse  egotism,  and  abuse, 
we  may  hope  that  to  the  better  things  the  preacher 
was  indebted  for  that  large  following  which  for  about 
forty-five  years  he  maintained.  Dogmatic  certainty, 
absolute,  audacious  self-assurance  and  self-assertion 
go  very  far ;  the  average  mind,  more  especially  the 
lower  and  most  uncultivated  order  of  mind,  cares  little 
or  nothing  for  processes  of  reasoning  in  the  pulpit. 
It  is  eminently  pleasant  at  all  times  to  see  a  mind 
made  up,  a  mind  which  can  distinctly  see  the  roots 
of  its  own  convictions.  The  pleasure  and  happiness 
arising  from  the  spectacle  of  such  a  preacher  must  de- 
pend, of  course,  upon  the  measure  to  which  the  hearer 
is  able  to  see  a  whole  and  entire  man  in  the  convic- 
tions ;  a  man,  heart,  mind,  and  life,  all  so  involved 
that  his  dogmatism  is  not  merely  a  conceited  self- 
assurance  to  himself,  but  an  object  of  rest  to  others. 
In  many  particulars,  Mr.  Wells  might  be  instructive, 
but,  we  have  certainly  thought,  especially  as  showing 
how  not  to  preach.  He  was  a  ragged  talker ;  his 
sermons  constitute  a  kind  of  spiritual  patchwork, 
queer  and  curious.  It  is  singular  to  notice  how 
seldom,  if  ever,  he  collects  a  whole  healthy  mind  in 
a  discourse.  His  sermons  were  always  sufficiently 
long,  but  he  scarcely  ever  finished  one  ;  he  was  con- 
stantly in  the  habit  of  running  a  very  simple  and 
lucid  text  through  a  succession  of  discourses,  ragged 


yAMES   WELLS,  347 


talk  being  the  characteristic  of  all.  And  in  all  he 
seemed  to  fit  the  clumsy  shoes  of  the  old  Adam 
upon  the  feet  of  the  young  Gospel,  and  so  sent  it 
awkwardly  speeding  on  its  way.  Sometimes  a  more 
fine  human  ring  marked  his  words,  as  when,  in  his 
own  manner,  he  speaks  of — 

"the  blessedness  of  work. 

"And  after  all,  I  make  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  as 
far  as  natural  happiness  is  concerned — I  say  that  that  man 
that  rises  and  goes  to  his  work  every  morning  as  his  amuse- 
ment, his  pleasure,  and  his  delight — I  say  that  that  man 
has  more  real  happiness  than  any  other  man  can  have.  I 
do  hold  with  one  of  our  old  writers  that  '  hard  work  is  the 
best  fun  in  the  world ; '  I  really  think  it  is.  And  I  say 
that  the  best  scholar  under  the  sun  is  that  man  that 
thoroughly  understands  his  own  business  ;  or,  if  he  does 
not  understand  it,  he  is  determined  to  work  at  it,  A  B  C- 
like,  to  begin  at  the  very  beginning,  and  go  on  stitch  by 
stitch,  and  bit  by  bit,  and  step  by  step,  until  he  does 
thoroughly  understand ;  and  then  he  will  go  on  with  it  with 
ease.  And  if  that  man  cannot  read  any  language  but  his 
own,  nor  even  speak  his  own  language  grammatically,  yet, 
if  he  understands  his  business  well,  that  man  is  a  thorough 
scholar,  let  that  business  be  whatever  it  may.  I  declare 
that  if  I  had  to  get  my  living  by  sweeping  a  crossing,  if  I 
would  not  sweep  it  as  tastily  as  I  could,  make  it  look  as 
nice  as  I  could,  keep  my  broom  as  nice  and  myself  as 
respectable  as  I  could;  so  that  I  do  believe  that  people, 
when  they  saw  me  in  the  distance,  would  come  to  my 
crossing  for  the  sake  of  giving  me  something.  There  are 
some  good  people  get  into  a  lazy,  dawdling,  mumping  sort 
of  spirit,  as  though  they  could  not  move ;  they  are  like 
stagnant  pools ;  they  want  some  one  to  rout  them  up  well. 
I  wish  I  had  such  persons  where  I  could  keep  them  under 


348      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

my  eye  for  a  week  or  two,  or  a  month  or  two  :  I'd  give 
them  no  peace  until  they  found  out  that  what  they  want  is 
just  to  have  plenty  to  do.  I  speak  from  experience  ;  I 
have  worked  hard  myself;  I  was  but  seven  years  old  when 
I  was  turned  out  into  the  world ;  and  I  never  wanted  a  bit 
of  bread  from  that  day  to  this  ;  anything  I  could  get  to  do, 
I  did  it ;  and  the  consequence  was  I  got  on  pretty  well,  at 
least  as  well  as  it  was  good  for  me  to  get  on ;  and  here  I 
am  now,  above  fifty  years  old,  and  a  better  man  than  some 
of  you  that  are  hardly  thirty,  because  you  have  been  afraid 
of  work,  and  I  have  not.  It  will  make  you  healthy  and 
strong  and  spirity  ;  and  when  you  get  seventy  or  eighty 
years  old,  you  will  be  a  lively,  muscular,  mental  old  gentle- 
man. I  recollect  Dr.  Franklin  says,  '  Here  am  I,  eighty- 
two  years  old,  and  the.  twelve  last  years  have  been  the  most 
active  and  happy  years  of  my  life.  I  have  crossed  the 
Atlantic  four  times,  and  consulted  the  English  Parliament 
upon  that  great  question  of  American  Independence.' 
People  now  at  four,  or  five-and-thirty  begin  to  hang  down 
their  heads,  and  look  almost  as  if  they  were  old ;  it  is  all 
from  want  of  action  ;  less  night  work,  and  more  morning 
work,  that  is  what  we  want,  depend  upon  it.  So,  then,  it  is 
a  fact  that  we  need  the  bread  that  perisheth,  and  we  must 
labour  for  it.  I  remember  a  minister  once  wrote  to  me, 
and  asked  me  if  I  would  be  his  doctor ;  he  had  a  certain 
disease,  he  said  ;  and  I  read  the  letter,  and  came  to  this  : 
he  says,  '  Really,  I  don't  feel  that  I  can  work ;  I  am  got  so 
lazy  ;  can  you  prescribe  a  remedy  ? '  And  I  wrote  to  him 
that  I  could  not ;  there  was  no  necessity  for  it,  for  there 
was  one  already  prescribed  ;  had  he  never  read  the  receipt 
in  the  good  old  Book  of  records  ? — '  If  any  man  will  not ' 
(not  cannot)  *  wcrk,  neither  shall  he  eat.'  '  If  that  doesn't 
cure  you,'  I  said,  '  I  don't  know  what  will.'  I  don't  know 
any  remedy  more  powerful  than  that;  I  think  it  is  infallible; 
you  may  depend  upon  it,  that  will  move  men  when  nothing 
else  will ;  for  such  persons  generally  think  a  pretty  good 


JAMES   WELLS,  349 

deal  about  number  one ;  so  that  when  you  touch  them 
pretty  close  there,  that  will  do  what  nothing  else  can.  For- 
give these  remarks.  I  love  the  promises  of  Providence  ; 
I  love  a  spirit  of  industry.  Never  mind  what  your  diffi- 
culties are,  you  will  in  the  end  overcome  them  and  sur- 
mount them." 

In  reviewing  what  we  have  said  concerning  the 
ministrations  of  James  Wells,  we  are  quite  sure  that 
many  of  his  hearers,  even  of  those  able  to  form  calm 
and  reasonable  judgment,  may  suppose  our  sketch 
has  been  far  from  just  ;  indeed,  there  were  many 
more  things  in  the  man  than  we  have  with  any  dis- 
tinctness brought  out.  We  have  said  already,  it 
would  not  be  possible  that  he  should  have  had  so 
large  a  number  of  followers  had  his  material  been 
principally  composed  of  mere  coarseness.  In  fact, 
James  Wells  was  a  very  extraordinary  man.  W^ith- 
out  knowing  it,  he  was  a  keen  logician,  and  he 
illustrates  very  singularly  the  doctrine  of  a  remark- 
able paper, — well  worthy  of  a  very  close  study  by 
any  of  our  readers, — by  the  late  Isaac  Taylor, 
entitled  "  Logic  in  Theology,"  in  which  he  especially 
exhibits  the  consequences  of  mere  logic  in  theology 
as  applied  to  the  doctrines  of  Jonathan  Edwards. 
If  we  merely  follow  a  logical  pathway,  whither 
does  it  lead  ?  David  Hume  followed  consistently 
his  logical  course  ;  as  consistently  did  Bishop  Berke- 
ley ;  as  consistently  did  Jonathan  Edwards ;  as 
consistently  did  James  Wells.  May  we  not  say 
that  with  all  of  them,  from  the  greatest  to  James 
Wells,  who  was  certainly  the  least, — although  none 
of  them  had  such  a  funeral, — they  believed  in,  and 
followed  consistently  a  set  of  wordy  demonstrations? 


350      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

And  the  narrower  the  mind,  the  more  it  is  in  danger 
from  such  a  mode  of  settling  truth,  and  Hke  OHver 
Holmes'  "  Deacon's  Masterpiece  ;  or,  Wonderful 
One-horse  Shay,"  the  whole  system  is  in  danger, 
although — 

"The  deacon's  art 
Had  made  it  so  like  in  every  part 
That  there  wasn't  a  chance  for  one  to  start. 
For  the  wheels  were  just  as  strong  as  the  thills. 
And  the  floor  was  just  as  strong  as  the  sills, 
And  the  panels  just  as  strong  as  the  floor, 
And  the  whipple-tree  neither  less  nor  more, 
And  the  back  cross-bar  as  strong  as  the  fore. 
And  spring,  and  axle,  and  hub  encore. 
And  yet  as  a  whole  it  is  past  a  doubt 
In  another  hour  it  will  be  worn  out  1 
First  a  shiver,  and  then  a  thrill. 
Then  something  decidedly  like  a  spill,— 
You  see,  of  course,  if  you're  not  a  dunce, 
How  it  went  to  pieces  all  at  once, — 
End  of  the  wonderful  one-horse  shay. 
Logic  is  logic.     That's  all  I  say." 

Thus  it  is  apparently  with  all  mere  systems  of 
logical  theology.  Mr.  Wells  adopted  certain  words, 
putting  of  course  certain  constructions  upon  them, 
following  them  out  to  legitimate  conclusions.  Hear 
him  speak  away  from  those  words,  of  the  love  of 
Christ,  of  the  sovereignty  of  God,  of  the  intimate 
knowledge  God  has  of  the  affairs  of  the  world  and 
souls,  we  would  listen  often  with  delight ;  but  he 
adopted  a  rigidly  narrow  interpretation  of  the  Gospel 
faith,  and  by  so  much  as  his  own  mind  was  narrow, 
he  followed  his  idea  on  persistently  to  its  close. 
He  often  appeared  in  his  sermons  to  give  intimations 
of  deep  knowledge  of  real  human  experience,  but  by 


JAMES    WELLS.  351 

his  system  of  thought  he  was  compelled  perpetually 
to,  run  up  every  idea  into  some  verbal  shadow  of 
Arminianism  or  Calvinism,  and  the  words  haunted 
him  until  they  became  powers  over  him ;  as  he 
looked  at  them,  indeed  they  were  and  are  powers, 
but  he  had  no  capacity  for  calculating  for  the  resist- 
ing medium  in  things.  He  was  like  a  philosopher 
who  should  discourse  concerning  the  laws  of  simple 
radiation  without  taking  into  account  the  elements 
of  the  atmosphere  through  which  it  has  to  pass. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

THE  PULPIT  OF  THE    SEVENTEENTH  AND 
EIGHTEENTH   CENTURIES. 

THE  rise  of  Protestantism  was  the  birth  also  of 
Puritanism,  and  in  their  ministry  we  trace  the 
origin  of  a  pulpit  power  which  is  very  distinctly 
separated  from  that  of  the  Romish  Church.  We 
have  never  enough  cultivated  that  which  the  Popish 
pulpit  cultivated  exclusively  ;  we  confine  the  inten- 
tion of  our  pulpit  to  those  twofold  energies  per- 
suasion and  conviction,  but  these  are  simply  mental ; 
or,  if  emotional,  they  are  so  entirely  through  the 
operation  of  thought,  so  that  they  very  partially,  we 
think,  represent  the  work  of  our  pulpit ;  and  they 
do  not  represent  the  work  of  the  Romish  preacher 
at  all  ;  his  aim  has  been  to  subdue,  to  overwhelm,  as 
he  overwhelms,  by  the  power  of  music,  and  the 
efficacy  of  sensuous  representations.  It  is  possible 
for  such  preaching  to  affect  one  very  powerfully, 
but  to  leave  the  conscience  quite  unimpressed  and 
untouched  ;  such  preaching  is  akin  to  the  power  of 
music,  and  such  preachers  preach  with  the  same 
effects  and  results  as  those  with  which  the  master 
and  prophet  of  song  might  sing  ;  the  very  thing  is 
described  to  the  life  in  the  prophet  Ezekiel — "  Lo, 


THE  PULPIT  OF  ijTH  AND  i%th  CENTURIES.    353 

thou  art  unto  them  as  a  very  lovely  song,  of  one 
that  hath  a  pleasant  voice  and  can  play,  well  on  an 
instrument,  for  they  hear  thy  words,  but  they  do 
them  not." 

Let  us  spend  a  moment  in  saying  how  many 
venerable  names  there  are  all  unknown.  We  have  not 
taken  the  reader  to  St.  Paul's  Cross,  that  famous 
place  where  Latimer,  Hooker,  Hooper,  Ridley,  and 
many  another  eloquent  tongue  spoke.  We  do  not 
know  the  wealth  of  the  old  shelves  where  still  are 
to  be  found  their  remains.  Here  we  have  one, 
Thomas  Playfere,  belonging  rather  to  the  sixteenth 
than  the  seventeenth  century  ;  he  was  professor  of 
divinity  in  the  University  of  Cambridge  ;  a  Calvinist, 
we  may  say  almost,  of  course  :  and  he,  further,  was 
a  fine  type  of  the  direct  method  with  which  Puri- 
tanism fastened  on  men's  consciences.  Dr.  Playfere 
has  been  called  a  trifler,  unrivalled  in  an  ornate  and 
flowery  style  ;  but  he  is  lively,  and  life-giving,  and 
resembles,  in  many  particulars,  his  predecessor, 
Henry  Smith  ;  he  stood  in  the  pulpit  of  the  great 
unchancelled  church  of  St.  Paul's  Cross — no  rood- 
loft,  no  richly  carved  nor  gilded  wood-work,  nor  screen, 
no  paraphernalia  of  Popish  idolatry,  or  corruption 
met  the  eye  ;  it  realised  the  often-acted  scene  of  the 
churchyard  cross,  in  which  the  old  friar  was  wont  to 
deliver  his  single  sermon,  when,  perchance,  denied 
the  pulpit  of  the  church,  but  it  was  the  whispering- 
gallery  of  the  nation.  Playfere  was  a  favourite 
there.  We  think,  however  he  may  be  charged  with 
trifling,  his  style  was  one  to  be  eminently  attractive 
to  the  multitude  ;  for  such  an  audience,  he  had  what 
would  be  a  very  striking  way  of  repeating,  reiterat- 


354      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

ing,  as  it   were  reverberating   his  thoughts,  images, 
and  words  ;  we  notice  this  in  the  following : — 

"that  the  preacher  must  say  well  and  doe 

WELL. 

"  Both  pastor  and  people  must  doe  that  themselves 
which  they  teach  others  to  doe.  That  must  be.  First  for 
the  pastor  he  hath  two  kind  of  garments, — a  breastplate, 
and  an  Ephod  :  the  breastplate  shewes  that  he  must  have 
science  to  teach :  the  Ephod  shews  that  he  must  have 
conscience  to  doe  that  which  he  teach eth.  And  in  the 
very  breast-plate  itself  is  written,  not  onely  Urim,  but  also 
Thummim.  Urim  signifies  light.  Thummim  signifies  per- 
fection. To  proove  that  the  pastor  must  not  onely  be  the 
light  of  the  world,  but  also  the  salt  of  the  earth  :  not  onely  a 
light  of  direction  in  his  teaching,  but  also  a  patterne  of  per- 
fection in  his  doing.  For  even  as  the  snuffers  of  the  taber- 
nacle were  made  of  pure  golde  :  so  preachers,  which  should 
purge  and  dresse,  and  cleare  others  that  they  may  burne- 
out  brightly,  must  be  made  of  pure  gold,  that  by  doing  well 
they  may  also  shine  themselves.  Hence  it  is  that  the 
Priest  hath  out  of  the  sacrifices  for  his  share,  the  shake- 
breast  and  the  right  shoulder.  The  shake-breast  puts  him 
in  minde  of  teaching  well :  the  right  shoulder  puts  him 
in  minde  of  doing  well.  That  great  Prophet  Elias  is 
called,  the  horseman  and  the  Chariot  of  Israel.  A  horse- 
man directs  the  chariot,  and  keeps  it  in  the  right  way  :  a 
chariot  goes  in  the  right  way  it  selfe.  And  so  a  minister 
must  not  onely  as  a  horseman  direct  others,  and  set  them 
in  the  right  way,  but  also  as  a  chariot,  he  must  followe  a 
good  course,  and  walke  in  the  right  way  himself.  He 
must  be  both  the  horseman  that  teacheth,  and  the  chariot 
that  doth,  both  the  horseman  and  the  chariot  of  Israel 
Therefore  he  hath  upon  the  fringes  of  his  vesture  pomgra- 
iiats  and  bells.      Many  preachers  are  full  of  bells  which 


THE  FULPIT  OF  i-jTH  AND  iSr//  CENTURIES.    355 

make  a  great  ringing  and  gingling,  but  because  they  have  not 
pomgranats  as  well  as  bells,  therefore  all  the  noise  that  they 
make  is  but  as  sounding  brass,  or  as  a  tinckling  cymball. 
For  the  godly  pastor  must  not  only  say  well,  and  sound  out 
the  word  of  the  Lord  to  others  clearly  as  a  bell,  but  also  he 
must  doe  well,  and  as  a  pomegranate  be  fruitful!  himself 
and  full  of  good  workes.  Even  as  the  pillars  of  the  taber- 
nacle were  made  of  Shittim  wood,  and  overlaid  with  pure 
gold :  so  preachers  (which  are  called  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians  the  pillars  of  the  Church)  must  not  onely  be  over- 
laid outwardly  with  pure  gold,  teaching  the  word  of  God 
purely,  but  also  they  must  doe  as  they  say,  and  inwardly  be 
made  of  Shittim  woode,  which  never  corrupteth,  never 
rotteth,  having  no  corruption,  no  rottenness  in  their  lives. 
Hereupon  our  Lord,  speaking  to  his  Prophet  saies,  Lift  up 
thy  voice  as  a  trumpet.  Divers  things  there  are  which 
sound  louder  then  a  trumpet.  The  sea,  the  thunder,  or  such 
like.  Yet  he  saies  not,  Lift  up  thy  voice  as  the  sea,  or  lift 
up  thy  voice  as  the  thunder,  but  lift  up  thy  voice  as  a 
trumpet.  Because  a  trumpeter  when  he  sounds  his  trumpet, 
he  winds  it  with  his  mouth,  and  holds  it  up  with  his  hands  : 
and  so  a  Preacher  which, is  a  spirituall  trumpeter,  must  not 
onely  by  teaching  wel,  sound  forth  the  word  of  life  with  his 
mouth,  but  also  by  doing  well  he  must  support  it,  and  hold 
it  up  with  his  hands.  And  then  doth  he  lift  up  his  voice 
as  a  trumpet.  Those  mysticall  beasts  in  Ezekiel,  which 
S.  Gregorie  understandeth  to  be  the  ministers  of  the  Church, 
had  hands  under  their  wings.  Many  preachers  are  full  of 
feathers,  and  can  scare  aloft  in  a  speculative  kind  of  dis- 
coursing :  but  if  you  should  search  for  hands  under  their 
wings,  perhaps  you  should  scarce  find  many  times  so  much 
as  halfe  a  hand  amongst  them.  But  the  godly  pastor  must 
have  not  onely  wings  of  high  wisdome  and  knowledge,  but 
also  hands  under  his  wings  to  doe  that  which  he  knoweth. 
For  as  the  Prophet  Malachie  witnesseth.  The  Priests  lips 
should    keepe    knowledge.      He  saies    not,  they  should 


356      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

babble  or  utter  knowledge  to  others,  and  have  no  care  to 
keepe  it  themselves,  but  having  delivered  it  to  others,  they 
must  as   well  as   others   observe   and   doe  it   themselves. 
And  then  indeede  may  their  lips  rightly  be  said  to  keepe 
knowledge.     For  even  as  they  which  repaired  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem,  held  a  sword  in  one  hand  and  wrought  with  the 
other  :  so  Preachers  which  by  winning  souls  repaire  and 
build  up  the  walls  of  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  must  not 
onely  hold  the  sword  of  the  spirit,  which  is  the  word  of  God 
in  one  hand,  but  also  they  must  labour  with  the  other  hand. 
Els  they  shall  pull  downe  and  destroy  rather  then  build  up. 
But  if  they  doe  as  fast  as  they  say,  then  <they  shall  build 
apace,  and  edifie  very  much.      Therefore  Saint  Paul  ex- 
horteth  Timothie  to  shew  himself  a  workeman,  which  need- 
eth  not  to  be  ashamed,  dividing  the  word  of  God  aright. 
He  must  not  onely  be  a  word-man,  but  also  a  workman. 
He  must  not  onely  hold  a  sword  in  one  hand,  to  divide  the 
word  of  God  aright,  but  also  labour  with  the  other  hand, 
and  DOE   his  best  to  shewe  himselfe  a  workeman  which 
neede  not  be  asham'd.    And  the  same  Apostle  exhorteth 
the  same  Timothy  againe,   to  shewe   the  true  patterne  of 
holsome  words.     Holsome  words  is  sound  teaching :  the 
true  patterne  of  holsome  words,  is  well  doing.      So  that  he 
shewes  the  true  patterne  of  holsome  words,  which  patternes 
and   samples   his   teaching  by  doing,  making  them   both 
matches    and    paires,    so   that    (as    Marke    the   Eremite 
speaketh)  a  man  may  easily  read  all  his  sermons,  and  all 
his  exhortations  to  others,   written  downe  as  it  were,  and 
expressed  in  the  lines  of  his  own  life.      And  thus  must 
every  faithful   preacher  doe.      He  must  have  not  only  a 
brest-plate,  but  also  an  Ephod  :   he  must  have  written  in 
this  brest-plate,  not  onely  Urim,  but  also  Thummim :    he 
must  be  like  the  snuffers  of  the  tabernacle,  not  only  purging 
others,  but  also  made  of  pure  gold  himself :  he  must  have 
for  his  share  of  the  sacrifices  not  onely  the  shake-brest,  but 
also  the  right  shoulder  :  he  must  be  as  Elias  was.  not  onelv 


THE  PULPIT  OF  \-j7H  AND  id>TH  CENTURIES.    357 

the  horsman,  but  also  the  chariot  of  Israel :  he  must  have 
upon  the  fringes  of  his  vesture,  not  onely  bells,  but  also 
pomgranats  :  he  must  be  like  the  pillars  of  the  tabernacle, 
not  onely  overlai'd  outwardly  with  gold,  but  also  inwardly 
made  of  Shittim  woode  :  he  must  not  onely  lift  up  his  voice, 
but  also  lift  it  up  as  a  trumpet :  he  must  not  onely  have 
wings,  but  also  hands  under  his  wings  :  he  must  not  onely 
with  his  lippes  utter  knowledge  to  others,  but  also  keepe 
knowledge  himself :  he  must  not  onely  hold  a  sworde  in  one 
hand,  but  also  labour  with  the  other  hand  :  he  must  not 
onely  devide  the  word  of  God  aright,  but  also  shew  himself 
a  workman  whifh  neede  not  be  ashamed  :  he  must  not 
onely  deliver  holesome  words,  but  also  shewe  the  true 
patterne  of  holesome  words,  which  is  a  godly  life.  The 
sum  is  this  :  The  faithfull  Pastor  must  not  onely  teach 
well,  but  also  doe  well.  For  He  that  both  doth  and 
teacheth,  the  same  shal  be  called  great  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven." 

Here  also  from  the  same  sermon  :— 

"  Beloved  in  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  It  is  a 
verie  monstrous  thing,  that  any  man  should  have  more 
tongues  then  hands.  For  God  hath  given  us  two  hands, 
and  but  one  tongue,  that  we  might  doe  much,  and  say  but 
little.  Yet  many  say  so  much  and  doe  so  little,  as  though 
they  had  two  tongues,  and  but  one  hand  :  nay,  three 
tongues  and  never  a  hand.  In  so  much  as  that  may  be 
aptly  applied  to  them,  which  PandtdpJms  said  to  some  in 
his  time  ;  You  say  much,  but  you  do  litle :  you  say  well,  but 
you  doe  ill :  againe,  you  doe  little,  but  you  say  much  :  you 
doe  ill,  but  you  say  well.  Such  as  these  (which  do  either 
worse  then  they  teach,  or  else  lesse  then  they  teach : 
teaching  others  to  doe  well,  and  to  doe  much,  but  doing 
no  whit  themselves)  may  be  resembled  to  div^erse  things. 
To  a  whetstone,  which  being  blunt  it  selfe,  makes  a  knife 


358      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

sharpe.  To  a  painter,  which  beeing  deformed  himselfe, 
makes  a  picture  faire.  To  a  signe,  which  beeing  weather- 
beaten  and  hanging  without  it  selfe,  directs  passengers  into 
the  Inne.  To  a  bell,  which  beeing  deafe  and  hearing  not 
it  selfe,  calls  the  people  into  the  Church  to  heare.  To  a 
nightingale,  which  beeing  restles  and  sitting  upon  a  thorne 
her  selfe,  brings  others  by  her  singing  into  a  sweet  sleepe. 
To  a  goldsmith,  which  beeing  beggerly  and  having  not  one 
peice  of  plate  to  use  himselfe,  hath  store  for  others  which 
he  shewes  and  sels  in  his  shoppe.  Lastly,  to  a  ridiculous 
actor  in  the  citie  of  Smyrna,  which  pronouncing  o  ccelum, 
O  heaven,  pointed  with  his  finger  toward  the  ground  :  which 
when  Polemo  the  chiefest  man  in  the  place  sawe,  he  could 
abide  to  stay  no  longer,  but  went  from  the  companie  in  a 
chafe,  saying.  This  foole  hath  made  a  solecisme  with  his 
hand ;  he  hath  spoken  false  Latine  with  his  hand.  Such 
are  all  they,  which  teach  one  thing,  and  do  another: 
which  teach  well,  and  doe  ill.  They  are  like  a  blunt  whet- 
stone :  a  deformed  painter :  a  weather-beaten  signe :  a 
deafe  bell :  a  restless  nightingale :  a  beggerly  goldsmith  : 
a  ridiculous  actor,  which  pronounceth  the  heaven,  and 
pointeth  to  the  earth.  But  he  that  sitteth  in  the  heaven, 
shall  laugh  all  such  to  scorne,  the  Lord  shall  have  them  in 
derision,  and  hisse  them  off  from  the  stage.  Because 
howsoever  they  have  the  heaven  commonly  at  their  tongues 
ende,  yet  they  have  the  earth  continually  at  their  fingers 
end.  So  that  they  speak  false  Latine  with  their  hand,  nay 
that  which  is  worse,  they  speake  false  Divinitie  with 
their  hand.  Whereas  we  might  easily  avoide  all  such  irre- 
gularitie,  and  make  true  cogruitie  between  the  tongue  and 
the  hand,  if  we  would  make  this  text  of  Holy  Scripture, 
the  rule  of  our  whole  life.  For  then,  I  assure  you,  we 
should  every  one  of  us  play  our  parts  so  well,  that  in  the 
ende,  the  tragedie  of  this  wofuU  life  being  once  finished,  we 
should  have  an  applause  and  a  plaudite  of  the  whole  theatre, 


THE  PULPIT  OF  i-jTH  AND  i8th  CENTURIES.   359 

not  onely  of  men  and  angels,  but  even  of  God  himselfe, 
who  doth  always  behold  us."* 

That  which  has  been  called  his  trifling  style  is 
well  illustrated  in  the  copious  manner  in  which  he 
gathers  up  images  and  fancies  in  the  following 
passage  : — 

"  Otherwise,  the  remembrance  either  of  vices  or  vertues,  is 
so  farre  from  putting  us  any  whit  forward,  that  it  casteth  us 
backward.  For  as  Marke  the  Eremite  witnesseth,  The 
remembrance  of  former  sinnes,  is  enough  to  cast  him 
downe  altogether,  who  otherwise  might  have  had  some 
good  hope.  Our  sins  and  Elies  sonnes  are  alike.  Eli 
hearing  his  sonnes  were  slaine,  whom  he  himselfe  had  not 
chastised  and  corrected  as  hee  ought,  fell  downe  backward 
and  brake  his  necke.  And  so  all  they  that  remember  and 
hearken  after  their  former  sinnes,  which  they  should  have 
mortified  and  killed,  fall  downe  backward,  and  turne  away 
from  God.  For  this  is  the  difference  betweene  the  godly 
and  the  wicked.  Both  fall.  But  the  godly  fall  forward 
upon  their  faces,  as  Abraham  did  when  hee  talked  with 
God :  the  wicked  fall  backward  upon  the  ground,  as  the 
Jewes  did  when  they  apprehended  Christ.  Hee  that  re- 
members his  sinnes,  to  be  sorie  for  them,  as  Abraham  did, 
falles  forward  upon  his  face  :  but  he  that  remembers  his 
sinnes,  to  rejoyce  in  them,  as  the  Jews  did,  falles  backward 
upon  the  ground.  Wherefore  if  thou  bee  upon  a  moun- 
taine,  looke  not  backward  againe  unto  Sodome  as  Lots  wife 
did  :  if  thou  be  within  the  Arke,  flie  not  out  againe  into  the 
world,  as  Noah's  Crow  did :  if  thou  bee  well  washed, 
returne  not  againe  to  the  mire  as  the  hogge  doth  :  if  thou 
bee  cleane  purged,  runne  not   again   to  thy  filth,  as  thee 

*  The  admirable  reiterative  power  in  these  extracts  is  very 
noticeable. 


36o      THE    VOCATlOlSr  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

dogge  doth :  if  thou  be  going  towards  the  land  of  Canaan, 
thinke  not  on  the  flesh-pottes  of  Egypt :  if  thou  be  march- 
ing against  the  hoast  of  Madian,  drinke  not  of  the  waters 
of  Harod  :  if  thou  be  upon  the  house  top,  come  not  downe  : 
if  thou  have  set  thy  hand  to  the  plough,  looke  not  behinde 
thee;  remember  not  those  vices  which  are  behind  thee. 
No,  nor  those  vertues  neither.  For  as  Gregorie  writeth  ; 
The  remembrance  of  former  vertues  doth  many  times  so 
besot  and  inveigle  a  man,  that  it  makes  him  like  a  blinde 
Asse  fall  down  into  a  ditch.  When  Orpheus,  went  to  fetch 
his  wife  Eurydice  out  of  hell,  hee  had  her  granted  to  him, 
upon  condition  that  hee  should  not  turne  backe  his  eyes  to 
looke  upon  her,  till  hee  had  brought  her  into  heaven.  Yet 
having  brought  her  forward  a  great  way,  at  length  his  love 
was  so  excessive,  that  hee  could  not  containe  any  longer, 
but  would  needes  have  a  sight  of  her.  Whereupon  forth- 
with hee  lost  both  her  sight  and  herself,  shee  suddenly 
againe  vanishing  away  from  him.  This  is  a  poeticall  fiction. 
Nevertheless  it  serveth  very  fitly  to  this  purpose.  To  ad- 
monish us,  that  if  we  have  any  vertue,  which  is  to  be  loved 
as  a  man  is  to  love  his  wife  yet  wee  must  not  be  so  blinde 
in  affection,  as  to  doate  too  much  upon  it,  or  to  fall  in 
admiration  of  our  selves  for  it,  or  to  be  alwaies  gazing  and 
wondering  at  it,  lest  by  too  much  looking  upon  it,  and  by 
too  well  liking  of  it,  and  by  too  often  remembering  it,  wee 
lost  it.  Because  indeed  hee  that  remembers  his  virtues, 
hath  no  vertues  to  remember." 

Here  is  what  would  be  to  the  audience  of  St. 
Paul's  Cross  a  delicious  piece  of  trifling. 

"  NAPHTHALI,   THE  HIND   LET  LOOSE. 

"  So  that  the  prophecie  of  the  Patriarke  Jacob  is  now  also 
fulfilled,  who  saith,  Nepthalie  shal  be  as  a  Hind  let  loose, 
giving  goodly  words.      For  Christ  did  first  preach  in  the 


THE  PULPIT  OF  i-jTH  AND  iSth  CENTURIES.    361 

land  of  Nepthalie  among  the  Jews.  But  seeing  the  Jews 
would  not  obey  him,  therefore  he  hath  turned  to  the 
Gentiles.  And  So  Nepthalie  is  as  a  hind  let  loose,  giving 
goodly  words.  Because  Christ,  who  first  preached  in 
Nepthalie,  is  not  now  any  longer  in  prison  among  the 
Jews  ;  but,  as  a  hind  let  loose,  leaping  by  the  mountaines, 
and  skipping  by  the  hills,  so  he  hath  run  swiftly  over  all 
the  world,  and  with  his  goodly  words,  with  his  gratious 
words,  he  hath  persuaded  Japheth,  and  all  the  Gentiles, 
to  dwell  in  the  tents  of  Shem,  and  to  ride  in  the  chariots 
of  Amminadab.  These  chariots  of  Amminadab  are  called 
in  Latine,  Quadrige,  because  each  of  them  is  drawne  with 
foure  horses.  Which  very  aptly  befitteth  the  doctrine  of 
the  Gospel.  For,  as  Calvin  noteth  in  the  Epistle  before  his 
Harmonie,  God  hath  of  set  purpose  ordained  that  the 
Gospel  should  be  written  by  foure  Evangelists,  that  so  he 
might  make  a  triumphant  chariot  for  his  sonne.  Which 
being  drawn  with  fowre  horses,  and  running  upon  fowre 
wheels  might  quickly  pass  over  all  the  earth,  and  so  shew 
the  gloria  of  the  Lord,  unto  all  his  Church." 

Another  writer  may  a  little  hold  our  notice, 
Anthony  Maxey,  Dean  of  Windsor,  and  apparently 
one  of  the  chaplains  of  Charles  the  First.  In  his 
sermons  there  is  less  of  strength  than  in  Playfere's, 
but  assuredly  even  more  of  tenderness.  There  is 
another,  less  argumentative  than  Playfere,  not  so 
tender  and  rhetorical  as  Maxey,  but  abounding  in 
strong,  vigorous,  and  more  impressive  images,  John 
Stoughton,  also  one  of  the  preachers  before  kings,  a 
chaplain  of  James  the  First,  and  one  of  the  thunderers 
at  St.  Paul's  Cross.  There  is  one  beginning  of  that 
thick  overlaying  of  the  old  learning  and  allusion, 
w^hich,   ornamental   as   it  looks    in    print,   is    to    be 


362      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

guarded  against  or  very  dexterously  used,  lest  it 
become  only  a  means  of  rather  hiding  the  truth,  than 
of  revealing  it.  None  of  these  men  were  either 
Basils  or  Chrysostoms  ;  we  are  not,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, so  completely  captivated  with  the  setting,  as 
in  the  earlier  fathers  of  Christian  eloquence — their 
method  in  the  pulpit  is  the  type  for  multitudes.  It 
would  not  profit  our  readers,  only  should  we  amuse 
them,  if  we  gave  the  method,  and  outline  of  any  of 
the  sermons  of  good  John  Stoughton,  especially  in 
Baruch's  Sore  Gently  Opened, — indeed,  it  is  egre- 
giously  ludicrous.     Yet  he  was  able  to  talk  thus  of 

"  PEACE   WITH   CONSCIENCE. 

"The  Bride  that  hath  good  cheere  within,  and  good 
musicke,  and  a  good  Bridegroome  with  her,  may  be  merrie, 
though  the  hail  chance  to  rattle  upon  the  tiles  without  upon 
her  wedding  day  :  though  the  world  should  rattle  about  his 
eares,  a  man  may  sit  merrie  that  sits  at  the  feast  of  a  good 
conscience  :  nay,  the  child  of  God,  by  vertue  of  this,  in  the 
midst  of  the  waves  of  affliction,  is  as  secure  as  that  child, 
which  in  a  shipwracke  was  upon  a  planke  with  his  mother, 
till  shee  awaked  him  securely  sleeping,  and  then  with  his 
prettie  countenance  sweetly  smiling,  and  by-and-by  sport- 
ingly  asking  a  stroake  to  beat  the  naughtie  waves,  and  at 
last  when  they  continued  boisterous  for  all  that,  sharply 
chiding  them,  as  though  they  had  been  but  his  playfellovves. 
O  the  innocencie  !  O  the  comfort  of  peace  !  O  the  tran- 
quillitie  of  a  spotless  mind !  There  is  no  heaven  so  cleere 
as  a  good  conscience. 

"  Againe,  all  outward  blessings  cannot  make  a  man  happie 
that  hath  an  ill  conscience,  no  more  than  warme  cloaths 
can  produce  heat  in  a  dead  carkasse,  if  you  would  heap 
never  so  many  upon  it :  there  is  no  peace  to  the  wicked, 


THE  PULPIT  OF  \-jTH  AND  \%th  CENTURIES.    363 

Attt  St  pax,  bello  pax  ea  detcrior.  For  with  this,  a  man  in 
his  greatest  fortunes,  is  but  like  him  that  is  worship!  in  the 
street  with  cap  and  knee,  bui  as  soon  as  hee  is  stept  within 
doores,  is  cursed  and  rated  by  a  scolding  wife  :  like  him 
that  is  lodged  in  a  bed  of  ivorie,  covered  with  cloth  of 
gold,  but  all  his  bones  within  are  broken :  like  a  book 
of  Tragedies  bound  up  in  velvet,  all  faire  without,  but  all 
blacke  within,  the  leaves  are  gold,  but  the  lines  are  bloud ; 
O  the  racke !  O  tl  e  torment,  O  the  horror  of  a  guiltie 
mind  !  There  is  no  hell  so  darke  as  an  ill-conscience,  from 
which  no  earthly  thing  can  free  a  man  :  if  hee  that  is  bound 
up  in  a  velvet  suit,  fiUetted  with  gold  laces,  were  sure  to 
escape  this,  I  think  velvet  would  never  be  cut  out  for 
patches,  to  hang  out  for  signes  of  the  tooth-ach  :  But 
it  is  not  a  Crowne  of  gold  can  cure  the  head-ach,  nor  a 
velvet  slipper  can  ease  the  gout,  nor  al  the  Minstrels  can 
make  the  Maid  that  is  dead  for  sin  rise  and  dance  :  no 
more  can  honour,  or  riches,  or  pleasure,  quiet  the  con- 
science ;  onely  the  harp  of  David,  the  holy  Singer  of  Israel 
can  charme  this  evil  spirit.  For  the  Hebrewes  observe,  that 
the  letters  in  the  name  of  God,  are  literce  guiesce7ites,  letters 
of  rest.  God  only  is  the  Center,  where  the  soul  may  find 
this  rest;  God  only  can  speake  peace  to  the  conscience, 
and  God  speaks  this  peace  only  by  religion  which  brings  in 
the  last  place,  peace  with  God." 

"the  god  of  peace. 

"God  is  the  best  store-house  that  a  man  can  have,  the  best 
Treasurie  that  a  Kingdom  can  have :  God  is  the  best 
Shield  of  any  person,  and  the  best  Safe-guard  of  any  Nation, 
if  God  be  our  enemie,  nothing  can  secure  us ;  if  God  be 
our  friend,  nothing  can  hurt  us :  for  when  the  enemie 
begirts  a  Citie  round  about  with  the  straightest  siege,  he 
cannot  stop  the  passage  to  Heaven,  and  so  long  as  that  is 
opened,  there  may  come  releese  and  succour  from  thence,  if 


364      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

God  be  our  friend,  if  he  be  in  league  with  us.  Faith  is  a 
better  Enginer  than  Dcedalus,  and  he  yet  made  wings,  with 
which  he  made  an  escape  over  the  high  wals,  within  which 
he  was  imprisoned :  let  Pharaoh  bee  behind,  the  red  sea 
before,  the  mountaines  on  each  side,  the  Israelites  can  find 
a  way,  Restat  iter  ccelo,  ccelo  tentabimus  ire:  When  there  is 
no  other  way  to  escajje  a  danger,  a  Christian  can  goe  by 
Heaven.  Againe,  when  a  Citie  is  compast  round  about 
with  a  wall  that  is  impregnable,  it  will  yet  be  open  still 
toward  Heaven,  and  therefore  cannot  bee  out  of  danger,  if 
God  be  an  enemie  :  for  all  their  wals  and  bars,  God  could 
raine  fire  and  brimstone  upon  the  Sodomites  from  Heaven, 
Alexander  asked  the  Scythians,  what  they  were  most  afraid 
of,  thinking  they  would  have  said  of  himselfe,  who  was  so 
victorious  everie  where ;  but  they  answered  scoffingly,  They 
were  most  afraid  lest  Heaven  should  fall  upon  them,  mean- 
ing they  feared  no  enemy ;  but  we  indeed  need  not  feare 
anything,  but  this  onely,  lest  the  heaven  should  fall  upon  us, 
lest  God  should  be  our  enemy." 

"without  god  in  the  world, 

"  For  as  Heraclitus  said.  If  the  Sun  were  wanting,  it  would 
be  night  for  all  the  Stars ;  so  if  the  light  of  God's  counte- 
nance be  wanting,  if  hee  frowne  us,  a  man  may  sit  in  the 
shadow  of  death,  for  all  the  glister  of  all  worldly  content- 
ments :  for,  I  beseech  you  tell  mee,  suppose  the  houses 
were  paved  with  pearles,  and  walled  with  diamonds,  if  the 
roofe  were  open  to  the  injuries  of  Heaven,  would  those 
shelter  you  from  the  storms  and  tempests  ?  would  you 
chuse  to  bee  so  lodged  in  an  hard  winter?  Suppose  the 
king  should  set  you  in  a  Chaire  of  State,  at  a  table  richly 
furnished,  royally  attended,  but  his  sword  hangs  over  your 
I^ead  in  a  twined  threed,  would  that  honour  make  you 
merrie  ?  would  you  desire  to  bee  so  feasted  ?  Suppose  God 
himselfe  should  make  you  this  offer,  crowne  your  heads  with 


THE  PULPIT  OF  i-jTH  AND  x^th  CENTURIES.    365 

rose-buds,  and  wash  your  paths  in  butter ;  cloath  your 
selves  in  purple,  and  fare  deliciously  everie  day,  take  your 
fill  of  pleasures,  open  your  mouth  wide,  and  I  will  fill  you 
with  all  that  heart  can  wish  of  worldly  things,  only  this 
Facitum  meant  nunqumn  videbitis  ;  You  shall  never  see  my 
face :  would  you  think  you  had  a  good  offer  ?  would  you 
accept  of  the  condition  ?  " 

In  this  rich  and  delightful  way  the  Puritan 
preacher  of  Aldermanbury  talked,  interlacing  his 
words  with  a  variety  of  recondite  allusion  from  the 
Rabbins,  and  from  the  classics — in  the  like  of  him, 
however,  and  his  style.* 

The  dawn  of  the  Reformation  was  in  a  day  when 
the  preaching  of  the  Romish  Church  was  especially 
cold,  formal,  and  from  the  lips  ;  the  words  of  our 
Reformers,  and  the  words  of  awakened  Protestantism, 
have  been  especially  characterised  by  this, — they 
have  searched  the  conscience.  We  might  attempt  to 
delineate  the  vices  of  the  French  school  of  pulpit 
eloquence,  and  to  lay  down  some  principles  from  the 
materials  which  the  Puritan  pulpit  has  handed  down 
to  us.  Both  have  their  faults ;  true,  the  French 
school,  so  far  as  it  is  represented  to  us  by  Bossuet, 
seems  to  us  audaciously  sinful ;  and  here  let  us  say 
that  no  lessons  of  pulpit  rhetoric  should  be  for  the 
purpose  of  creating  eloquent,  as  that  term  is  usually 
understood — that  is,  florid,  showy,  artistic,  and 
rhetorical  speakers.  The  work  of  the  true  preacher  is 
the  searching  of  the  entrance  into  mens  consciences^  by 

*  A  good  deal  of  condensed  information  and  acquaintance 
with  the  pulpit  of  St.  Paul's  Cross  may  be  found  in  "  Sketches 
of  the    Reformation   and   Elizabethan   Age   taken   from  the 
'Contemporary  Pulpit,'  "     By  J.  0.  W.  Haweis,  M.A. 


366      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

the  knowledge  of  his  own.  The  preaching  of  Bossuet 
is  sonorous,  and  showy  sound.  Versailles,  in  those 
days,  in  the  age  of  Louis  the  Thirteenth,  had  a 
theatre  and  a  chapel,  and  the  spirit  of  the  one  pre- 
sided over  the  other ;  alike  in  either  place,  it  was 
the  acting  of  things  which  did  not  for  a  moment 
affect  the  auditors'  life ;  it  produced,  but  never  really 
touched,  the  passions.  What,  then,  is  in  preaching  ? 
Manner,  matter.  The  French  is  almost  exclusively 
attentive  to  manner. 

Verbal  crotchetiness  was  very  characteristic  of 
many  of  even  the  best  preachers  of  the  reigns  of  James 
the  First  and  Charles  the  First  ;  our  readers  will  re- 
member how  this  defaces  the  sermons  even  of  Bishop 
Andrewes,  and  of  a  greater  mind  still,  that  of  Dr. 
Donne.  No  doubt  our  preaching  has  somewhat  im- 
proved. Echard  tells  us  of  a  preacher  who  may  be 
said  to  have  a  shop-keeping  sort  of  eloquence.  He 
told  his  hearers  that  "  Christ  is  a  treasury  of  all  wares 
and  commodities,"  and  then  he  cried  aloud,  "  Good 
people,  what  do  you  lack  ?  What  do  you  buy?  Will 
you  buy  any  balm  of  Gilead,  and  eye-salve  ?  Any 
myrrh,  aloes,  or  cassia  ?  Shall  I  fit  you  with  a  robe 
of  righteousness,  or  with  a  white  raiment  ?  Say, 
then,  what  is  it  you  want  .-'  Here  is  a  very  choice 
armoury  ;  shall  I  show  you  a  helmet  of  salvation,  a 
shield  or  breastplate  of  faith  "i  Will  you  please  to 
walk  in  and  see  some  precious  stones }  A  jasper, 
a  sapphire,  or  a  chalcedony  ?  Speak,  what  do  you 
buy  }  what  do  ye  buy  ? "  To  some  of  our  notions 
this  is  but  little  short  of  shocking.  But  it  has  been 
usual  to  give  the  credit  of  all  these  sins  against  bad 
taste,  and  therefore  against  good  sense,  to  the  Puritan. 


THE  PULPIT  OF  i-jth  AND  \d,TH  CENTURIES.  367 

Robinson,  in  his  edition  of  "  Claude,"  has  given  a 
multitude  of  instances  illustrative  of  the  sins  of  the 
educated,  and  even  of  bishops  and  High-Church 
dignitaries.  At  a  later  period  the  well-known 
Daniel  Burgess  used  to  say : — "  That  is  the  best  key 
which  fits  the  lock  and  opens  the  door,  though  it 
be  not  a  silver  or  a  gold  one."  In  one  of  his  sermons 
he  told  his  congregation  that  "  if  they  wanted  a 
suit  for  a  year,  they  might  go  to  Mr.  Doyley ;  if 
they  wanted  a  suit  for  life,  they  might  go  into 
chancery  ;  but  if  they  would  have  one  to  last  for 
ever,  they  must  go  to  Christ  Jesus,  and  get  the  robe 
of  His  righteousness  to  clothe  them."  In  William's 
reign,  he  said,  "  The  reason  why  the  people  of  God 
who  descended  from  Jacob  were  called  Israelites 
was,  because  God  did  not  choose  that  His  people 
should  be  called  Jacobites."  The  times  are  full  to 
overflowing  of  such  stories  as  these. 

Amazing  and  amusing  are  some  of  these  things  in 
our  possession.  We  have  one  sermon  entitled  Tke 
Royal  Merchant  A  Sermon  preacHd  at  Whitehall, 
before  the  King's  Majesty,  at  the  Nuptials  of  an 
Honourable  Lord  and  his  Lady.  By  Robert  Wilkin- 
son, of  Cambridge.  The  second  edition — for  it 
passed  into  a  second  edition — bears  the  imprint  of 
1708  ;  it  is  mainly  a  description  of  the  bride,  and 
the  happy  text  taken — "  She  is  like  a  merchant  ship, 
she  bringeth  her  goods  from  afar!'  Every  line  of 
it  is  the  most  delightful  nonsense.  A  wife  is  to  be 
like  a  ship — a  merchant  ship — to  teach  !  (i)  The 
merchant  is  a  profitable  ship,  to  teach  a  wife  in  all 
things  to  endeavour  her  husband's  profit.  (2)  The 
merchant  is  a  painful  ship,  and  she  must  be  a  pain- 


368      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

ful  wife.  (3)  He  is  the  merchant,  she  the  ship;  she 
must  conclude  she  was  made  for  him,  etc.  (4)  She 
is  like  a  merchant's  ship,  that  is,  a  friendly  fellow  and 
peaceable  companion,  not  a  man-of-war  to  him. 
Then  we  have  the  following  exquisite  passage  : — 

"  But  of  the  Qualities,  a  Woman  must  not  have  one  quality 
of  a  Ship ;  and  that  is  too  much  Rigging.  O  !  what  a 
wonder  is  it  to  see  a  Ship  under  sail,  with  her  Tacklings,  and 
her  Masts,  and  her  tops  and  top-gallants ;  with  her  upper 
Decks  and  her  Nether-decks,  and  so  bedect;  with  her 
Streamers,  Flags,  and  Ensigns,  and  I  know  not  what;  yea, 
but  a  world  of  wonders  it  is  to  see  a  Woman  created  in 
God's  Image,  so  miscreate  oftentimes  and  deformed,  with 
her  French,  her  Spanish,  and  her  foolish  fashions,  that  he 
that  made  her,  when  he  looks  upon  her,  shall  hardly  know 
her,  with  her  Plumes,  her  Fans,  and  a  silken  Vizard ;  with  a 
Rufif  like  a  Sail ;  yea,  a  Ruff  like  a  Rain-bow ;  with  a 
Feather  in  her  Cap,  like  a  flag  in  her  Top,  to  tell  (I  think) 
which  way  the  Wind  will  blow.  Isaiah  made  a  profer  in 
the  third  of  his  Prophecy,  to  set  out  by  enumeration  the 
Shop  of  these  vanities  ;  their  Bonnets,  and  their  Bracelets, 
and  their  Tablets,  their  Slippers,  and  their  IMufflers;  their 
Vails,  their  Wimples,  and  their  Crisping-pins ;  of  some 
whereof  if  one  should  say  to  me,  (as  Philip  sometime  said 
to  the  Eunuch)  Under  stand  est  thou  what  thou  readest  ? 
{Acts  8.)  I  might  answer  with  the  Eunuch  again,  How  can 
I  without  a  Guide?  that  is,  unless  some  Gentlewoman 
would  comment  on  the  Text.  But  Isaiah  was  then,  and  we 
are  now  ;  now  that  fancy  hath  multiplied  the  Text  of 
Fashions  with  the  time,  so  as  what  was  then  but  a  Shop,  is 
now  encreased  to  a  Ship  of  Vanities.  But  what  saith  the 
Scriptures  ?  The  King's  Daughter  is  all  glorious  within, 
Psal.  45,  and  as  Ships  which  are  the  fairest  in  shew,  yet  are 
not  always  the  fittest  for  use  ;  so  neither  are  Women  the 


THE  PULPIT  OF  ijth  AND  iZth  CENTURIES.   369 

more  to  be  esteem'd,  but  the  more  to  be  suspected  for  their 
fair  trappings ;  yet  we  condemn  not  in  greater  Personages 
the  use  of  Ornaments ;  yea,  we  teach  that  Silver,  Silks,  and 
Gold  were  created,  not  only  for  the  Necessity,  but  also  for 
Ornament  of  the  Saints  :  In  the  practice  whereof,  Rebeccah, 
a  holy  Woman  is  noted  to  have  received  from  Isaac  a  Holy 
Man,  even  Ear-rings  Habiliments  and  Bracelets  of  Gold, 
Gen.  24,  therefore  this  is  it  we  teach  for  Rules  of  Christian 
Sobriety,  That  if  a  Woman  exceed  neither  Decency  in 
Fashion,  nor  the  limits  of  her  State  and  Degree ;  and  thai 
she  be  proud  of  nothing,  we  see  no  reason  but  she  may 
wear  any  thing. 

"  It  foUoweth,  She  is  like  a  Ship,  but  what  a  Ship  ?  A 
Ship  of  Merchants,  no  doubt,  a  great  Commendation :  For 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  like  a  Merchant,  Matt.  13.  and 
Merchants  have  been  Princes,  Isa.  23.  and  Princes  are 
Gods,  Psal  82.  The  Merchant  is  of  all  Men  most 
laborious  for  his  Life,  the  most  adventurous  in  his  Labour, 
the  most  peaceable  upon  the  Sea,  the  most  profitable  to  the 
Land ;  yea,  the  Merchant  is  the  Combination  and  Union  of 
Lands  and  Countries.  She  is  like  a  Ship  of  Merchants, 
therefore  first  to  be  reckon'd  (as  ye  see)  among  the  Laity ; 
not  like  a  Fisherman's-Boat,  not  like  St.  Peters  Ship;  for 
Christ  did  call  no  She  Apostles,  indeed  it  is  commendable 
in  a  Woman,  when  she  is  able  by  her  Wisdom  to  Instruct 
her  Children,  and  to  give  at  Opportunities  good  Counsel  to 
her  Husband;  but  when  Women  shall  take  upon  them 
(as  many  have  done)  to  build  Churches,  and  to  chalk  out 
Discipline  for  the  Church;  this  is  neither  commendable, 
nor  tolerable  :  For  her  Hands  (saith  Solomon)  must  ha?idle 
the  Spindle,  Ver.  19.  the  Spindle  or  the  Cradle,  but  neither 
the  Altar  nor  the  Temple;  for  St.  yohn  commendeth  even 
to  the  Elect  Lady,  not  so  much  her  talking  as  her  walking 
in  the  Commandments,  2  yohn  5.  6.  therefore  to  such 
preaching  Women,  it  may  be  answered,  as  St.  Bernard 
sometimes  answered  the  Image  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  at  the 

24 


370      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

great  Church  at  Spire  in  Germany;  Bernard  was  no  sooner 
come  into  the  Church,  but  the  Image  straight  saluted  him, 
and  bade  him,  Good  morrow,  Bernard,  whereat  Bernard 
well  knowing  the  Juggling  of  the  Fryars,  made  answer  again 
cot  of  St.  Paul.  O  (saith  he)  your  Ladyship  hath  forgot 
yourself,  It  is  not  lawful  for  Women  to  speak  in  the  Church." 

Assuredly,  all  the  nonsense  was  not  on  the  lips 
of  the  Nonconformist.  Of  course,  the  period  to 
which  we  refer  was  the  time  when  these  moral 
essays  abounded — those  pretty  little  performances, 
of  which,  it  has  been  well  said  by  Dr.  Newman,  to 
still  and  to  overcome  the  force  of  the  passions  they 
are  as  effectual  as  the  feathers  of  the  Chinese,  thrown 
into  the  sea  to  quiet  the  storm  and  to  drive  away 
the  devil. 

We  have  quoted  some  specimens  of  Romanist 
oratory,  which  certainly  shows  that  prejudice  had 
not  blinded  our  eyes  to  any  measure  of  excellence 
among  the  orators  of  that  Church  ;  but  we  could  fill 
a  volume  with  specimens  of  nasty  sermons,  nonsense 
sermons,  and  vulgar  sermons,  from  the  lips  and  pens 
both  of  Popish  and  Church  of  England  orators. 
After  such  specimens  as  these,  who  shall  ridicule 
the  preaching  of  the  so-called  Puritan  carpenters  or 
cobblers  .■'  Things  come  round,  for  the  very  sermons 
so  ridiculed  were  frequently  preached  by  those  who 
ridiculed  them.  "  Odd  fate,"  exclaims  Robinson,  "  of 
a  Puritanical  sermon, — studied  in  a  jail,  preached 
under  a  hedge,  printed  in  a  garret,  sold  at  a  pedlar's 
stall,  bought  by  a  priest's  footman,  uttered  from  a 
pulpit  in  a  cathedral,  applauded  by  a  bishop,  and 
ordered  to  the  press  by  a  procession  of  gentry." 

A  mode  of  treatment  of  Scripture  truth  more  un- 


THE  PULPIT  OF  \^TH  AND  i8th  CENTURIES.  371 

like  our  now  ordinary  method,  than  that  adopted  by- 
some  of  these  men,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive. 
How  different  from  Keil  and  Dehtzsch,  from  Lange, 
Olshausen,  Ebrard,  Ewald,  or  Hengstenberg !  These 
old  men  dealt  with  Scripture  in  altogether  another 
fashion.  When  they  sat  down  to  the  Bible  they 
never  said,  "  What  do  you  here  }  Who  sent  you  1 
Whence  came  you?  How  do  you  prove  yourself.''" 
There  were  not  many  of  them  even  who  said,  "  What 
is  the  meaning  of  you  1  "  They  accepted  all  that  as 
understood  from  the  commencement ;  they  said  to 
the  Bible,  or  the  part  of  it  to  which  they  addressed 
themselves,  "You  are  here,  and  I  am  here;  comfort 
me,  help  me,  talk  to  me,  be  wisdom  to  me,  light 
to  me,  treat  me  tenderly,  guide  me  truly."  They 
submitted  themselves  to  the  Bible  with  a  simplicity 
and  earnestness  w  hich,  to  most  of  our  modern  divines, 
would  seem  the  most  helpless  and  hopeless  im- 
becility. Do  we  mean  by  this  to  give  altogether  our 
admiration  and  adhesion  to  the  method  of  the  old 
Puritan  commentators  ?  No.  We  are  thankful  to 
the  modern  men  for  much  ;  but,  assuredly,  the  things 
we  cannot  often  press  out  of  them  are — comfort, 
refreshment,  and  sweetness.  Where  is  there  one  of 
whom  that  can  be  said  which  Mr.  Grosart  says  of 
Richard  Bernard's  Ruth  f — "  As  you  read,  you  feel 
refreshed  as  with  the  blowing  of  bean-blossom- 
scented  breezes  in  your  evening  walk  ;  you  fancy 
its  author  has  a  gentle  spirit,  living  apart  from  the 
crowd  in  cloistered  piety  ;  the  pastor  of  some 
small  rural  flock  bringing  the  odour  of  kine  and 
grass  into  some  antique  village  church."  Again, 
he  speaks  of  him,  and  of  another  of  his  works — "  As 


Z^2      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

full  of  wit,  wisdom,  penetration,  and  ineffable 
touches,  as  the  tints  in  sea-shells,  or  the  cups  in 
flowers."  We  shall  look  a  rare  long  time  among 
modern  theologians  of  the  scholastic  or  expository, 
critical  or  exegetical  order,  before  we  meet  with  any 
likeness  to  things  so  sweetly,  simply,  and  delightfully 
natural.  We  have  no  doubt  that,  comparing  the  two 
orders  of  men  together,  in  breadth  of  thought, 
perhaps  in  the  quality  of  pure  thought,  the  moderns 
have  an  advantage  over  their  fathers  ;  of  criticism, 
of  course,  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  most  of  these 
fathers  were  entirely  ignorant — though  even  in  this 
department  we  would  back  "  Owen  on  the  Hebrews  " 
against  any  of  the  innumerable  efforts  of  modern 
times  to  dig  into  the  depths,  or  scale  the  heights  of 
that  stupendous  epistle  ;  and  we  still  remember 
with  homage  the  immense  labours  of  Lightfoot  and 
Pocock  ;  they  excelled  in  that  which  seems  to  be  so 
much  passed  over,  forgotten,  unknown,  or  unappre- 
ciated among  modern  theologists, — whether  from  the 
pulpit,  the  professor's  chair,  or  the  press  ; — these 
ancient  men  were  tender,  emotional,  and  experi- 
mental. The  probability  is,  if  a  man  assay  that 
nowadays,  he  sprawls  over  into  the  most  deplorable 
stupidity,  or,  with  the  most  perfect  sa7ig  froid,  he 
offers  you  a  glass  of  the  most  watery  milk  and 
water.  The  old  commentators  were  human, 
thoughtful,  perfectly  serious  in  their  apprehension  of 
life,  and  the  life  to  come  ;  they  were  profoundly 
experimental,  and,  even  now,  they  better  read  the 
human  states  of  some  of  us  than  do  the  men  who 
are  living  in  our  midst. 

Their  diffuseness  was  immense  ;  to  us,  if  our  con- 


THE  PULPIT  OF  i-jTH  AND  \?>th  CENTURIES.   373 

venience  did  not  permit  us  to  skip  huge  gulfs,  they 
would  most  of  them  be  frequently  tedious.  If  it  be 
true,  as  Guibert  de  Nogent  says,  "  a  tedious  sermon 
only  causes  anger,  what  was  good  in  it  is  forgotten, 
and  men  go  away  feeling  only  aversion,"  then  we 
think  the  auditors  of  those  times  must  have  often 
gone  away  angry.  It  must  be  admitted  that  about 
many  of  them  there  is  a  great  sameness  ;  but  they 
are  rich  in  illustration  and  in  feeling.  Many  of  them 
could  scarcely  ever  have  laid  down  their  pen  ;  they 
must  have  been  always  in  the  study,  they  carried 
the  study  perpetually  with  them,  they  communed 
with  their  own  heart.  It  is  probable  the  night-lamp 
continued  trimmed  to  a  late  hour,  "  outwatching  The 
Bear ;''  it  is  still  more  probable  that  they  were  up  at 
an  early  hour.  One  wonders  how  their  works  con- 
trived to  find  a  sale  sufficient  to  pay  the  printer — of 
more  than  this  they  were  usually  careless.  Conceits 
and  fancies  fastened  themselves  like  burrs  upon  them, 
and  led  them  to  all  sorts  of  even  whimsical, 
spiritual,  allegorical  interpretations,  like  Richard 
Bernard's  description  of  the  marshalling  the  subjects 
of  the  proceedings  in  Manshire : — 

"  Sin  is  the  Thief  and  Robber ;  he  stealeth  our  graces, 
spoileth  us  of  every  blessing,  utterly  undoeth  us,  and 
niaketh  miserable  both  body  and  soul.  He  is  a  murderer : 
spares  no  person,  sex,  or  age  ;  a  strong  thief :  no  human 
power  can  bind  him  ;  a  subtle  thief:  he  beguiled  Adam, 
David,  yea,  even  Paul.  The  only  watchman  to  spy  him 
out  is  Godly-Jealousy.  His  resort  is  in  Soul's  Town, 
lodging  in  the  heart.  Sin  is  to  be  sought  in  the  by-lanes, 
and  in  Sense,  Thought,  Word,  and  Deed  Streets.  The  hue 
and  cry  is  after  fellows  called  Outside,  who  nod  or  sleep  at 


374      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

Church,   and,  if  awake,  have  their  mind   wandering :    Sir 
Worldly  Wise,  a  self-conceited  earthworm  ;  Sir  Lukewarm,  a 
Jack-on-both-sides  ;  Sir  Plausible  Civil ;  Master  Machiavel ; 
a  licentious  fellow  named  Libertine  ;  a  snappish  fellow,  one 
Scrupulosity ;  and  one  babbling  Babylonian  ;  these  conceal 
the  villain  Sin.     To  escape,   he  pretends  to  be  an  honest 
man  ;   calls  vices  by  virtuous  names  ;  his  relations,  Ignor- 
ance, Error,   Opinion,    Idolatry,    Subtility,    Custom,    Fore- 
fathers, Sir  Power,  Sir  Sampler,  Sir  Must-do,  Sir  Silly,  Vain 
Hope,  Presumption,  Wilful,  and  Saint-like,  all  shelter  and 
hide  him.     The  Justice,  Lord  Jesus,  issues  his  warrant — 
God's  Word — to  the  Constable,   Mr.    Illuminated  Under- 
standing,   dwelling   in    Regeneration,    aided   by   his   wife, 
Grace ;   his  sons.  Will  and  Obedience,  and  his  daughters. 
Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity  ;  with  his  men  Humility  and  Self- 
denial,  and  his  maids  Temperance  and  Patience.     Having 
got  his  warrant,  he  calls  to  aid  his  next  neighbour,  Godly 
Sorrow,  with  his  seven  sons.  Care,  Clearing,  Indignation, 
Fear,    Vehement    Desire,    Zeal   and   Revenge :    these   are 
capable  of  apprehending  the  sturdiest  thief.     He  goes  to 
the  common  inn,  an  harlot's  house  called  Mistress  Heart, 
a  receptacle  for  all  villains  and  thieves,  no  dishonest  person 
being   denied   house-room.      Mistress    Heart  married   her 
own  father,  an  Old-man,  keeping  no  rest  night  and  day,  to 
prevent  any  godly  motion  from  lodging  there.     The  house 
has  five  doors,   Hearing,   Seeing,    Tasting,   Smelling,   and 
Feeling.     Eleven  maids,  impudent  harlots,  wait  upon  the 
guests.    Love,    Hatred,    Desire,    Detestation,    Vain-hope, 
Despair,  Fear,  Audacity,  Joy,  Sorrow,  and  Anger,  and   a 
man-servant  Will.     The  Dishes  are  the  lusts  of  the  flesh, 
served  in  the  platter  of  pleasure  ;  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  in 
the  plate  of  profit ;  and  the  pride  of  life.     The  drink  is  the 
pleasures  of  sin  j  their  bedroom  is  natural  corruption.     *  In 
this  room  lieth  Mistress  Heart,  all  her  maids,  her  man,  and 
all    her  guests   together,   like   wild    Irish.'      The   bed    is 
Impenitency,  and  the  coverings  Carnal  Security ;  when  the 


THE  PULPIT  OF  i'jth  AND  i2>th  CENTURIES.  375 

Constable  enters,  he  attacks  them  all  with  *  apprehensions 
of  God's  wrath,'  and  carries  them  before  the  Judge,  who 
examines  the  prisoners,  and  imprisons  them  until  the 
assizes,  in  the  custody  of  the  jailor  New  Man.  If  any 
prisoner  breaks  out,  the  sheriff — Religion — must  bear  the 
blame  ;   saying.  This  is  your  religion,  is  it?  " 

The  keepers  and  fetters,  as  vows,  fasting,  prayer, 
etc.,  are  described  with  the  prison. 

Or,  as  in  another  like  description  of  the  trial  of 
the  prisoner,  and  judgment  without  appeal : — 

"  The  commission  is  conscience ;  the  circuit,  the  Soul ;  the 
council  for  the  king  are  Divine  Reason  and  Quick-sighted- 
ness ;  the  clerk,  Memory ;  the  witness,  Godly  Sorrow  ;  the 
Grand  Jury,  Holy  Men,  the  inspired  authors  :  the  traverse 
jury,  Faith,  Love  of  God,  Fear  of  God,  Charity,  Sincerity, 
Unity,  Patience,  Innocency,  Chastity,  Equity,  Verity,  and 
Contentation ;  all  these  are  challenges  by  the  prisoners 
who  would  be  tried  by  Nature,  Doubting,  Careless,  &c., 
all  freeholders  of  great  means.  This  the  Judge  over- 
rules ;  Old-man  is  put  on  his  trial  first,  and  David,  Job, 
Isaiah,  and  Paul,  are  witnesses  against  him.  He  pleads, 
*  There  is  no  such  thing  as  Original  Corruption  ;  Pelagius, 
a  learned  man,  and  all  those  now  that  are  called  Anabap- 
tists, have  hitherto,  and  yet  do  maintain  that  sin  cometh  by 
imitation,  and  not  by  inbred  pravity.  Good  my  lord,  cast 
not  away  so  old  a  man,  for  I  am  at  this  day  5,569  years 
old.'  He  is  found  guilty,  and  his  sentence  is  :  '  Thou 
shalt  be  carried  back  to  the  place  of  execution,  and  there 
be  cast  off,  with  all  thy  deeds,  and  all  thy  members  daily 
mortified  and  crucified,  with  all  thy  lusts,  of  every  one  that 
hath  truly  put  on  Christ.'  Mistress  Heart  is  then  tried, 
Moses  (Gen.  viii.  21),  Jeremiah  (xvii.  9),  Ezekiel  (xi.  19), 
Matthew  (xii.  34),  and  others  give  evidence,  and  she  is 
convicted,  and  sentenced  to  perpetual  imprisonment  under 


376      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

the  jailor,  New  Man.     All  the  rest  of  the  prisoners  are 
tried." 

Some  of  our  readers  will  say,  Precisely  so,  it  is  the 
spirit  of  fancy  and  conceit ;  these  "  quirks  and  quid- 
dities "  of  speech,  with  which  these  men  abound,  are 
not  pleasant  to  us.  To  which  we  may  also  reply, 
Where  such  characteristics  are,  this  nimbleness  of 
pregnant  fancy  brings  many  other  better  things  with 
it ;  it  is  like  the  light  or  the  rain — valuable,  not 
only  for  what  they  are  in  themselves,  but  for  what 
they  open  in  others.  We  like  such  words  as  the 
following,  quoted  by  Mr.  Grosart  from  Samuel 
Torshell,  in  which  he  so  happily  sketches  the  humble 
rustic  believer.      He  says  : — 

"  There  lies  a  great  deal  of  wealth  in  some  obscure  and 
neglected  Christians.  They  do  not  more  ordinarily  tread 
upon  and  walk  over  the  unknown  veins  of  gold  in  America, 
than  many  supercilious  and  conceited  professors  do  pass  by 
and  neglect  golden  and  very  precious  spirits.  One  would 
not  think  what  dexterity  in  the  Scriptures,  what  judgment 
in  controversies,  what  abihty  to  settle  and  comfort  a  dis- 
turbed conscience,  what  fervency  and  expressions  in  prayer, 
what  acquaintance  with  God  and  His  providence,  what 
strength  of  faith,  what  patience,  meekness,  moderation, 
contentedness,  heavenly- minded  ness,  and  what  not,  may  be 
now  and  then  found  out  and  discovered  in  plain  people, 
men  and  women  that  wear  plain  clothes,  that  have  plain 
carriage  and  plain  speech.  And  besides,  there  may  haply 
be  more  where  grace  is  expected  than  we  look  for,  more 
in  a  saint  than  a  bare  sentence  or  action  will  or  can  express. 
The  golden  vein  is  broader  and  thicker  than  sometimes  we 
guess  it  to  be.  How  then  is  the  necessary  use  of  wisdom 
to  be  able  to  see  further  than  the  russet?     Not  to  be 


THE  PULPIT  OF  x^th  AND  i8r//  CENTURIES.  377 

cozened  with  reverend  beards  and  grave  furs  and  demure 
countenances  (like  the  councillors  to  the  Muscovian  that  I 
spake  of  in  my  "  Hypocrite  "),  as  if  graces  and  gifts  dwelt 
only  at  those  signs.  And  when  we  find  a  vein,  there  must 
be  skill  to  dig  it.  Oh  !  how  did  the  old  patriarchs  remove 
their  habitations  for  the  benefit  of  water  springs !  how  did 
they  rejoice  when  they  found  a  well !  and  we,  when  we  have 
met  with  these  '  wells  of  living  water,'  how  shall  we  fetch  it 
up  1  '*'  (Prov.  XX.  5). 

The  reading  of  these  men  vi^as  peculiar  ;  it  was  a 
reading  we  have  learned  to  despise.  They  were  not 
great  in  novels,  and  compendious  notes,  and  treatises 
of  philosophy  ;  these  were  few  then  ;  indeed,  modern 
philosophy  had  scarcely  left  her  kingdom  of  Egyp- 
tian night  of  the  dark  ages  to  set  forth  upon  her 
pilgrimage  to  the  promised  land.  We  read  a  hun- 
dred books  to  their  one  ;  but  for  the  weight  of  real 
learning,  we  have  in  general,  perhaps,  the  propor- 
tion of  a  grain  to  their  hundredweight.  They  were 
thoroughly  well-bottomed  men  ;  they  turned  over  the 
fathers  with  infinite  delight.  Dear  to  them  "  Gregory 
the  Great  on  Job  ;  "  dear  to  them  "  Augustine  on  the 
Psalms  ;  "  and  words  and  works  such  as  these  became 
index  fingers  to  them  of  matters  they  were  to  make 
their  own  by  experience.  They  put  us  in  mind  of 
that  Solitary  of  the  desert,  who  came  into  the  city  of 
Alexandria  and  carried  back  with  him  a  single  text 
of  Scripture,  refusing  afterwards  to  learn  another 
because  he  could  never  fully  practise  the  first.  We 
find  fault  with  them  because  they  found  a  whole 
body  of  theology,  a  perfect  universe,  in  a  text ;  and 
}'et,  perhaps,  they  were  more  reasonable  than  we  are, 
for  as  the  whole  firmament  is  held  in  a  drop  of  rain 


378      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

or  dew,  and  all  the  forces  of  nature  may  be  held  in 
solution  in  a  single  grain,  so  it  does  not  seem  un- 
reasonable that  even  a  single  portion  of  the  Book  of 
God  should  contain  the  whole  of  the  Book  of  God  ; 
and  it  was  a  characteristic  of  most  of  these  com- 
mentators that  they  liked  to  find,  and  to  dwell  upon 
texts  which  were  to  them  little,  but  comprehensive 
Gospels,  the  self-contained  chapters  and  portions  of 
the  Book  of  God,  and  every  text  was  a  kind  of 
geometrical  staircase,  and  stood  self-poised  and 
balanced.  Many  of  these  men  can  never  be  suffi- 
ciently loved,  their  lives  were  the  salt  of  our  English 
earth,  their  ashes  and  memories  give  a  sanctity  to 
many  an  out-of-the-way  village  church  or  tabernacle, 
and  their  words,  while  we  receive  with  thankfulness 
the  thoughtful  criticism  of  modern  times,  possess 
a  searching  and  sustaining  grace  and  vigour  which 
thought  and  criticism  alone  can  never  bestow. 

A  notice  of  these  men,  their  commentaries  and 
sermons,  would  be  quite  incomplete  if  it  did  not 
include  a  reference  to  the  great  and  bulky  books 
of  Christopher  Ness  *  and  John  Trapp ;  f  the 
estimates  formed  of  these  seem  also,  for  the  most 
part,  characteristic  of  Thomas  Gouge,  of  Edward 
Elton,  of  Elnathan  Parr,  of  Michael  Jermin,  of 
William  Cowper,  of  Daniel  Rogers,  and  innu- 
merable   authors  besides,    amongst    whom,  it    must 


*  "  A  Complete  History  and  Mystery  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  Logically  Discussed  and  Theologically  Im- 
proved," etc.,  etc.     4  vols.,  folio.     1690. 

•f  "  A  Commentary',  or  Exposition  upon  the  Whole  Bible." 
By  John  Trapp,  M.A.,  once  of  Christ's  Church,  Oxford,  now 
of  Weston-upon-Avon,  in  Gloucestershire,  1650 — 1660.  5  vols,, 
folio.     Now  reprinted  by  R.  D.  Dickenson,  London. 


THE  PULPIT  OF  ijth  AND  iSth  CENTURIES.  379 

be  confessed,  there  is  considerable  sameness  of 
doctrine,  remark,  and  style  ;  among  them,  perhaps, 
Trapp  may  be  regarded  as  chief,  more  desultory 
than  many,  less  critical,  more  amusing  and  illustra- 
tive, but  very  substantially  the  same.  Trapp  was  no 
commentator  to  please  the  men  of  the  modern  critical 
school,  or  nice,  over-refining,  and  fastidious  tastes. 
A  great  deal  that  he  said  will  bear  perhaps  no  sort 
of  close  scrutiny ;  he  set  down  everything  as  it 
came  to  his  nimble  and  wondrously  furnished  memory, 
and  rapid-glancing  mind  ;  of  all  the  spiritualising 
old  commentators  he  is  the  chief  Matthew  Henry 
has  a  flowing  and  felicitous  style  ;  he  is  often  quaint, 
never  coarse,  every  word  may  be  read  in  the  family ; 
what  he  knew  and  had  read  never  appears,  he  always 
keeps  such  a  highway  of  speech  that  the  most 
illiterate  can  apprehend  him  ;  he  must  have  known 
Trapp's  book  well.  Their  method  is  very  similar, 
and  both  dealt  with  Scripture  exactly  as  Augustine 
and  Gregory  the  Great  have  set  to  all  times  the 
example. 

We  do  not  mean,  of  course,  to  compare  in  weight 
or  worth  our  two  dear  commentators  with  the  grand 
and  immortally  beloved  bishops  of  Hippo  and  Rome. 
But  they  all  treated  the  words  of  Scripture  in  a 
manner  which  seems  now  to  be  impossible.  Every 
remotest  thread  of  the  fringe  of  sacred  speech  was  to 
those  men  penetrated  with  Divine  aromas  of  fra- 
grances ;  like  "  the  oil  that  went  down  to  the  beard, 
even  Aaron's  beard,  unto  the  skirts  of  his  garments," 
so  spiritual  power  and  meaning  pulsed  along  every 
syllable  of  the  Holy  Book.  They  could  not  read  a 
text  without  saying,  "Surely  God  is  in  this  place." 


380      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

All  the  words,  too,  panted  and  were  alive  with 
spiritual  meanings — Christ  must  be  everywhere. 
They  constantly  heard  Him  saying,  in  all  the  texts  of 
the  old  Book,  "  They  testify  of  Me."  This  is  Trapp's 
method.  A  good  deal  of  modern  criticism  and  com- 
mentary results  in  a  beautifully  adroit  success  in 
lowering  to  the  reader's  mind  the  whole  tone  and 
intention,  exclusiveness  and  spirituality  of  the  Book. 
There  is  a  great  deal  of  nonsense  in  Trapp  ;  we  are 
often  compelled  to  smile,  and  something  more,  per- 
haps, but  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  his  nonsense 
is  always  innocent,  and  we  would  rather  have  it  than 
a  great  deal  that  passes  for  modern  critical  refine- 
ment and  sense.  The  things  in  his  pages  which  are 
most  far-fetched  and  amusing  are  delightful  compared 
with  some  of  the  dreary  dissertations,  the  occult,  critical 
sagacities,  and  impersonal  etymological  abstractions 
in  which  some  modern  minds  cut  themselves  adrift 
from  all  the  moorings  of  sense.  His  reading  must 
have  been  extraordinary  ;  he  lays  it  all  under  con- 
tribution ;  we  have  no  commentary  at  all  approach- 
ing it  in  its  multiplicity  and  variety  of  reference 
and  suggestion.  The  Fathers,  the  Greek  and  Latin 
poets,  historians,  and  philosophers,  the  chroniclers  of 
our  own  country,  all  yield  him  admirable  illustra- 
tions ;  he  who  read  no  book  but  Trapp,  translating, 
referring  to,  and  verifying,  all  the  authors  he  quotes, 
could  only  be  a  learned  man.  Then,  he  is  quaint  and 
witty,  and,  again,  he  holds  all  in  a  solutioi.  of  rich 
unction  and  tenderness.  His  work  abounds  with 
anecdote,  and  while  there  is  much  in  so  large  a  work 
with  which  we  might  dispense,  so  that  we  have  often 
thought  it  might  be  well  condensed  for  family  read- 


THE  PULPIT  OF  i^th  AND  iSr//  CENTURIES.  381 

Jng,  yet  we  are  compelled  to  feel  that  for  ministers 
and  teachers  who  desire  to  be  masters  of  assemblies, 
no  commentary  is  so  rich  and  useful.  He  does  not 
refine  either  in  learning  or  thought  ;  he  teems  with 
corresponding  texts  whatever  passage  he  expounds. 
His  knowledge  of  Scripture  must  have  been,  so  to 
speak,  infinite;  he  explains  a  text,  and,  in  doing  so, 
refers  you  to  some  out-of-the-way  text,  or  Scripture 
illustration,  which  has  most  likely  escaped  your 
notice,  and  thus  often  guides  you  to  a  whole  chain  of 
illustration.  Certainly  William  Orme's  criticism,  in 
his  "  Bibliotheca  Biblia,"  partakes  only  of  his  often 
ungenerous,  and  always  cold  criticism,  when  he  says 
that  "  Trapp  was  a  man  of  some  vigour  of  mind,  but 
his  language  is  often  exceedingly  quaint  and  un- 
couth." 

A  large  volume  would  not  suffice  to  trace  the  cha- 
racteristics, and  even  slightly  to  illustrate  the  various 
features  of,  the  pulpit  of  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries.  Yet  we  should  like  to  mention 
some  names,  not  often  heard  now,  names  of  men 
whose  works  are  few  and  scarce,  and  not  very  likely 
to  be  reprinted  :  some  of  these  names  are  associated 
with  a  rare  amount  of  learning,  of  piety,  of  calm 
thought,  and,  still  more  frequently,  with  the  excur- 
sions of  a  most  lively  fancy.  We  turn  to  the  shelves 
of  the  Puritan  divines — those  massive,  square,  closely 
printed  volumes,  those  stately  folios — they  were  all 
spoken  in  churches  before  the  great  parties  came  to 
their  defiant  struggle,  and  the  madness  of  that  imbe- 
cile, old,  frantic  Laud  tore  the  Church  in  twain  ;  or 
in  churches  in  villages  and  in  towns,  while  the  strife 
was  raging,  and  the  Independents  and  Presbyterians 


382      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

were  renewing  the  contest,  which  had  been  between 
freedom  and  episcopacy ;  or,  perhaps,  in  lonely 
village  chapels  and  conventicles,  in  the  poor  meeting- 
house, retreating  into  the  lonely  lane  from  the  sneer 
of  the  satirist,  or  the  warrant  of  the  magistrate.  Let 
us  mention  a  few  whose  names  and  works  will  be  light, 
help,  and  aid,  if  our  readers  place  them  within  reach 
in  their  study.  There  were  men  to  whom,  we  confess, 
we  have  an  attachment  of  heart — the  Puritan  mystics ; 
especially  George  Sikes,  the  friend  and  biographer 
of  Sir  Harry  Vane,*  and  his  friend,  Peter  Sterry, 
whose  work  on  "  The  Freedom  of  the  Will,"  and 
his  rare  and  highly  prized  "  Rise,  Race,  and  Royalty 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  the  Soul  of  Man," 
and  his  posthumous  work  "  On  the  Appearance  of  God 
to  Man  in  the  Gospel,"  refract  and  glow  with  broken 
and  mystical  splendours  in  every  syllable,  disorderly 
and  incoherent  as  they  are.  More  to  the  level 
of  ordinary  apprehension  is  John  Everard,t  of 
Kensington  ;  and  to  those  who  care  to  enter  upon 
the  treasures  of  mystical  divinity,  this  volume,  as 
well  as  those  mentioned  before,  is  a  perfect  exche- 
quer of  Divine  wealth  and  suggestion  ;  and  not  at  all 
inaptly  does  he  illustrate  a  large  religious  philosophy 
of  his  time,  and  the  mode  in  which  the  letter  of  the 
word  was  made  to  give  up  unexpected  stores  to  the 
patient  seeker.  An  instance  of  this  occurs  in  his 
mode  of  expounding  Joshua  xv.  15,  16,  17  : — 


*  "  Evangelieal  Essays  to'wards  the  Discovery  of  a  Gospel 
State."  By  George  Sikes,  1666  "  Ah  Exposition  of  Ecclesi- 
astes,  or.  The  Preacher."     First  printed  1680. 

+  "  Some  Gospel  Treasuries  Opened,  or  the  Holiest  of  all 
Unvailing,"  etc.,  etc.     By  John  Everard,  D.D.,  1653. 


THE  PULPIT  OF  i^th  AND  \%th  CENTURIES.   383 


"the  smiting  of  kirjath-sepher. 

"  But  to  all  this  I  reduce  only  this  part  of  this  chapter  now 
read,  to  unfold  and  interpret  all  this  :  And  for  the  present 
I  have  made  choice  of  these  two  verses,  to  give  light  to  that 
whole  chapter ;  and  that  chapter  is  the  exposition  of  this, 
as  I  before  said  :  O,  how  like  is  my  text,  and  every  part 
thereof,  to  those  new  washed  sheep  !  Cantl  iv.  2,  Every 
word  beareth  tivins,  and  there  is  none  barren  among  them. 

"  Of  which  two  verses,  I  shall  say,  as  Abigail  said  of  Nabaly 
when  David  came  to  destroy  him, 

"  Regard  not  this  son  of  Belial,  and  let  not  my  Lord  be 
angry,  Nabal  is  his  name,  and  so  is  he  :  So  I  may  say  of 
this  text,  as  their  names  are,  so  are  they. 

"  Here  is  Kiriath-sepher,  and  Caleb,  and  Othniel,  and 
Achsah.  We  will  see  what  secrets  and  mysteries  the  Holy 
Spirit  hath  couched  under  these  vails  :  For  as  they  are  in 
Hebrew,  they  express  nothing  to  us;  but  read  them  in 
English,  and  take  off  their  vail,  and  you  may  see  what  honey 
will  come  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  eater,  and  out  of  the  strong 
sweetness. 

"  What,  then,  is  Kiriath-sepher  ?  In  Hebrew  it  signifies 
the  City  of  the  Booh,  or  the  City  of  the  Letter. 

"  We  will  first  interpret  them  to  you  into  English,  and  then 
we  shall  come  to  show  you  what  they  are  to  every  one  of 
us ;  for  it  is  the  office  of  the  ministers  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, to  strive  to  take  off  the  vail,  that  every  one  may  see 
his  own  face  in  the  Scriptures. 

"In  the  next  place,  what  is  Achsah?  In  Hebrew  it 
signifies,  the  rending  of  the  vail. 

"And  then  what  signifies  Caleb?  In  the  Hebrew  it  is 
as  much  as  to  say,  My  heart,  or  a  perfect  heart,  or  a  good 
heart. 

"  And  what,  then,  is  Othniel  ?  In  the  Hebrew  it  is,  God's 
good  time,  or  the  Lord's  fit  opportunity 


384       THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

"  I  have,  beloved,  as  yet  read  it  to  you  but  in  Hebrew : 
And  then  it  runs  as  it  is  written,  and  Caleb  said,  Whosoever 
smiteth  the  city  Ki7-iath-sepher  and  taketh  it,  to  him  will  I 
give  Achsah  ?ny  daughter  to  wife ;  and  Othniel,  the  son  of 
Kenaz,  the  brother  of  Caleb,  took  it,  a?id  he  gave  icnto  him 
Achsah  his  daughter  to  wife,  and  so  on.  But  in  English  it 
is  to  be  read  thus  :  And  my  heart  said,  or  a  good  heart 
said,  that  whosoever  smiteth  and  taketh  the  City  of  the 
Letter,  to  him  will  I  give  the  tearing  or  rending  of  the  vail ; 
And  Othniel  took  it,  as  being  God's  fit  time  or  opportunity, 
and  he  married  Achsah  ;  that  is,  enjoyed  the  rending  of  the 
vail,  and  thereby  had  the  blessing  possessed  by  Achsah,  by 
the  vail  being  rent,  both  the  upper  springs,  and  the  nether 
springs.  To  him  that  obtains  this  rending  of  the  vail,  to 
him  shall  be  given  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom  of  God  • 
he  possesses  full  content,  heaven  and  all  happiness,  and 
whatever  his  heart  can  wish  for,  as  we  shall  show  hereafter, 
if  God  permit. 

"  The  smiting  of  this  Kiriath-sepher  is  the  smiting  of  the 
Letter  ;  we  must  strike  this  Letter,  this  Scripture,  and  take 
it,  and  then  we  shall  have  bonas,  the  gift,  or  reward  ;  there 
is  no  getting  of  Achsah  to  wife  without  the  smiting  of  this 
Kiriath-sepher,  and  taking  it ;  you  yourselves  must  be  the 
Othniels,  but  it  must  be  a  Caleb,  a  good  heart,  that  must 
make  proclamation  in  you,  encourage,  and  put  you  on  to 
this  work  ;  you  must  know  this.  Self  can  nev^r  smite  this 
Letter.  If  you  smite  it  for  your  own  ends — for  your  own 
carnal  advantages,  or  for  your  own  liberty — there  is  enough 
would  so  smite  the  Letter,  as  St.  Paul  saith,  to  abuse  their 
liberty  by  Jesus  Christ,  to  the  satisfying  of  the  flesh — this  is 
nothing  but  the  Devil's  and  Satan's  smiting  and  taking  the 
Letter  ;  for  flesh  and  the  old  man  wished  there  were  no  law 
to  rule  and  bridle  it  :  this  is  not  Othniel's,  nor  a  Caleb's 
smiting  and  taking  ;  but  this  is  ourselves — this  is  not  to 
strike  it  in  Christ's  name,  but  in  our  own  names,  and  then 
we  shall  never  marry  Achsah. 


THE  PULpiT  OF  \^TH  AND  iBth  CENTURIES.   385 

"He  that  rightly  strikes  the  City  of  the  Letter,  shall  have 
Achsah  to  wife :  observe  hence — 

"  Thai  we  may  have  the  Scriptures,  and  yet  not  marry 
Achsah ;  we  may  be  very  conversant  with,  and  daily  use  the 
Scriptures,  and  yet  never  marry  Achsah,  never  possess  the 
rendi?ig  of  the  vail.  Oh,  brethren  !  know  this  for  certain, 
we  may  be  bred  and  born  with  the  Scriptures,  live  and  die 
with  the  Scriptures,  rise  and  go  to  bed  with  the  Scriptures, 
eat  and  drink  with  the  Scriptures  ;  they  may  be  always  in 
our  hands,  and  ahvays  in  use  ;  insomuch  that  we  may  be 
able  to  give  account  of  the  whole  Bible  by  heart,  and  yet  not 
marry  Achsah,  and  yet  this  rock  yield  no  water  to  quench 
our  thirst,  and  all  because  we  read  them  as  a  history,  as 
things  done  long  ago  without  us,  and  not  at  present  doing 
in  us. 

"  Let  us  labour  to  preserve  the  Letter  of  the  Word  whole, 
entire  and  untouched ;  but  the  Letter  is  said  to  kill,  not  that 
it  doth  so  in  its  own  nature,  but  per  accidens  :  it  is  so  to  him 
who  looks  no  farther  then  the  Letter,  we  make  it  so  to 
ourselves,  a  killing  Letter. 

"  As  if,  suppose  I  should  give  you  a  cogal,  or  an  oyster, 
and  I  should  tell  you.  Take  this,  for  therein  is  precious 
meat  to  sustain  and  nourish  you.  Now  if  you  take  this  and 
keep  it  by  you  and  never  crack  the  shell,  that  so  you  may 
come  at  the  meat  and  the  virtue  that  is  in  it ;  I  may  say 
now,  the  shell  kills  you,  for  if  you  only  look  on  the  shells, 
and  lie  watching  the  outside  only,  will  this  nourish,  will  this 
give  life  ?  Certainly  no ;  but  if  you  crack  it,  and  open  it, 
and  eat  the  fneat,  this  will  nourish  :  yet  I  may  justly  and 
truly  say,  this  cogal,  or  these  oysters  kill  you,  because  you 
depend  upon  that  which  will  starve  and  undo  you,  but  the 
meat,  that  gives  life,  so  in  the  same  sense  is  it  spoken 
concerning  the  Word.  The  Letter  kills,  but  the  Spit  it  gives 
life.  If  you  be  always  handling  the  Letter  of  the  Word, 
always  chewing  upon  that,  what  great  things  do  you?  No 
marvel  you  are  such  starvelings  ;  no  marvel  you  thrive  not ; 

25 


386      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

no  marvel  you  are  such  monsters^  always  children,  and  never 
come  to  any  growth  ;  no  marvel  you  go  not  on  to  perfection  ; 
what  do  you  more  then  every  carnal  man  may  do  ?  what  do 
you  more  than  hypocrites  ?  Do  not  hypocrites  the  same  ? 
Nay,  does  not  the  devil  the  same  ?  For  he  knows  the 
Letter  exactly,  and  he  can  discourse  excellently  thereof, 
far  beyond  the  learnedest  Rabbi  in  the  world  ;  but  I  say 
then,  if  you  rest  only  in  the  Letter,  that  kills,  except  this 
Letter  be  crackt,  except  this  city,  Kiriath-sepher,  be  smitten 
and  taken,  ye  cannot  come  at  the  kernel,  ye  cannot  have 
Achsah,  Caleb's  daughter. 

"  Though  the  Letter  contain  in  it  life  and  nourishment,  as 
the  oyster-shell  doth  the  oyster,  and  as  the  shell  of  the  cogal 
doth  the  meat ;  and  ye  cannot  have  the  oyster  without  the 
shell,  yet  you  see  you  cannot  have  the  meat  neither,  with- 
out you  crack  and  break  the  shell." 

This  w^as  a  singular  method  of  exposition  ;  the 
style  of  Peter  Sterry  was  more  suggestive,  rich,  and 
magnificent  ;  literally  his  pages  shine  like  the  dewy 
spangles  of  the  hedges  upon  a  bright  summer  morn- 
ing :  they  are  glowing  with  a  mystical  gold  and  glory. 
Alas  !  how  many  names  for  the  present  we  leave 
unmentioned  ;  the  ages  to  which  this  chapter  refers 
were  the  ages  of  Hooker,  and  Milton,  and  Barrow, 
and  Taylor,  the  age  of  the  Field  of  Cloth  of  Gold  of 
our  language  and  literature. 

Every  man's  mind,  as  we  shall  see  by-and-bye, 
makes  its  own  style  ;  we  do  not  commend  this  style 
to  our  readers  ;  but  true  stateliness  is  strength,  and 
even  the  most  popular  style  gains  by  that  tone  sup- 
plied by  Hooker  and  Milton.  We  cannot  conceive 
either  of  these  vast  men  as  orators,  their  works  had 
no  nimblenesSy  they  move  like  the  sails  of  vast  ships 


2 HE  PULPIT  OF  x-jTH  AND  i^th  CENTURIES.    38,-' 

and  fleets,  not  like  the  wings  of  birds  ;  this  is  not 
the  impression  the  pulpit  is  to  convey  ;  the  preacher 
is  to  attack,  to  be  busy  with  scaling  ladders,  to  use 
the  arrows  of  choice  words  ;  these  men  rather  blow 
the  trumpet,  and  parley  and  cry  aloud  for  a  truce 
while  one  matter  is  being  debated. 

Beloved  names  crowd  on  names.  We  find  it  good 
to  pronounce  them,  but  we  cannot  tithe  the  shelves 
that  give  wealth  to  language,  and  speech,  and 
thought.  We  can  say  nothing  of  Thomas  Watson  ; 
of  Thomas  Brooks ;  of  Nehemiah  Rogers,  the  author 
of  "  The  Fast  Friend,"  "  The  Figless  Fig  Tree,"  and 
other  such  pieces  ;  of  Obadiah  Sedgwick,  a  master 
of  wit  and  tenderness,  especially  in  his  beautiful 
piece,  "  The  Shepherd  of  Israel  ; "  and  Godfrey 
Goodman,  the  quaint  author  of  "The  Fall  of  Man." 
Their  faults  are  not  so  much  the  want  of  clear 
arrangement,  as  of  mere  verbal  and  desultory  obser- 
vation ;  a  lively  fancy  led  them  too  often  to  the  mere 
remarking  about  a  word  or  a  text  rather  than  to  a 
protracted  inquiry  into  the  scope  and  relations  of  it  ; 
from  this  vice  Willet,  Sclater,  Jacomb,  the  Goodwins, 
and  Manton,  are  very  greatly  free,  but  of  all  of  them, 
and  of  these  also,  it  may  be  said,  for  the  most  part, 
they  broke  their  treatment  of  subjects  and  texts  too 
much  into  heads  ;  we  read  them  with  love,  and  with 
use,  but  still  are  often  compelled  to  think,  as  we 
read,  of  Herder's  definition  of  a  sermon,  "An  animal, 
with  an  emaciated  body,  stretching  out  two  heads 
one  after  the  other,  displaying  two  or  three  teeth, 
and  dragging  after  it  a  four,  three,  or  two-fold  tail, 
which  feebly  wags."  Emaciated  bodies  these  sermons 
can    scarcely    be    said    to    possess,    but    they    were 


3^^     THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

wanting  in  that  architecture,  in  the  laying  of  the 
bricks  of  the  building,  likely  to  impose  and  to  com- 
mand success. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  than  that,  while  the 
writings  of  Taylor,  South,  and  Barrow  should  have 
received  the  honour  of  incessant  commendation  and 
qftotation,  the  writings  of  Thomas  Adams,  Brooks, 
and  Watson  should  be  almost  unknown  ;  it  cannot 
be  the  faults  of  their  style  :  these  exist  in  even  a 
larger  degree  in  Jeremy  Taylor;  it  cannot  be  their 
inattention  to  the  principles  of  ne  quid  nirnis,  the 
presence  of  superfluities  ;  that  was  a  fault  of  their 
age  :  there  scarce  si  an  exception  to  the  sin  of  super- 
fluity in  any  of  those  whole  pages  upon  which  the 
fame  of  these  men  has  floated.  Their  wealth  is  over- 
flowing ;  their  language,  their  ideas  and  illustrations 
roll  in  waves  upon  our  mind.  There  is  the  wit  and 
pungency,  with  no  unhallowed  and  servile  coarseness, 
and  there  is  the  richness  of  learning,  and  majesty, 
variety,  and  beauty  of  style,  with  tender,  imaginative 
pathos. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

PURITAN  ADAMS. 

THOMAS  ADAMS  has  been  called  the  Shake- 
speare of  the  Puritans.  In  no  sense  does  this 
convey  any  idea  of  the  place  he  occupies  ;  but 
perhaps  he  was  the  Herbert — the  George  Herbert 
— of  the  pulpit.  There  is  scarcely  a  name  the 
age  to  which  he  belonged  has  preserved  which  is 
so  surrounded  by  an  atmosphere  of  oblivion  as 
his.  He  is  now  to  us  a  voice  out  of  a  cloud — 
at  best  a  shade,  and  nothing  more :  "  no  man 
knoweth  his  sepulchre  ; "  there  is  no  likeness  of 
him  ;  nothing  is  known  of  his  parentage  ;  nothing 
can  be  gathered  of  his  life,  or  his  manner  of  life  ; 
over  his  grave  "the  iniquity  of  oblivion,"  as  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  would  say,  "  has  blindly  scattered 
her  poppy,"  He  is,  doubtless,  found  in  the  register 
of  God  ;  but  all  about  him,  if  we  may  trust  the 
industry  of  those  who  have  sought  to  perpetuate  his 
works,  has  passed  from  the  record  of  man.  Our 
folio  edition  of  his  collected  works  bears  the  im- 
print of  the  year  1629  He  was  alive  in  the  year 
1658,  when  the  two  sermons  were  published  which 
are  included  in  Dr.  Angus's  edition.  He  can  be 
traced  from  pulpit  to  pulpit,  but  this  is  all  that  can 


390      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

be  gathered  of  him.  In  1612  he  was  preacher  of 
the  Gospel  at  Willington,  in  Bedfordshire;  in  16 14 
he  was  at  Wingrave,  in  Buckinghamshire  ;  in  1 6 1 8 
he  held  the  preachership  of  St.  Gregory's,  under  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral,  and  was  "  observant  chaplain  "  to 
Sir  Henry  Montague,  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of 
England  ;  in  1629  he  published  the  folio  collection 
of  his  works,  now  reprinted;  in  1633  he  published 
the  well-known  Commentary  on  the  Second  Epistle 
of  Peter  ;  then  he  vanishes  from  sight.  Hints  there 
are  of  his  being  sequestrated  during  the  period  of 
the  Revolution  and  Protectorate ;  this  is  possible, 
even  probkble.  In  1653  ^^  was  living  in  a  "de- 
crepit and  necessitous  old  age,"  and  most  likely  died 
before  the  period  of  the  Restoration.  Through  what 
an  eventful  period  he  lived  we  have  seen,  through 
what  changes  of  events  and  princes.  His  sermons 
have  all  the  marks  of  the  transition  age  ;  they  have 
all  the  mannerisms  of  the  Puritan  theology  ;  while 
in  his  ideas  of  government  he  had  all  the  traces  of 
absolute  Toryism.  Like  most  of  the  Low  Church 
party  of  the  present  day,  he  held,  no  doubt,  to 
Puritanism  in  doctrine,  and  Whitgiftism  in  Prelacy, 
rubric  and  general  Church  symbolism.  Hence  he 
not  only  indulges  in  ample  eulogy  upon  Queen 
Elizabeth  and  her  thrice-blessed  memory,  but  floats 
with  almost  all  the  preachers  and  writers  of  his  age 
in  flattering  homage  to  James,  and  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  Divine  right  of  kings.  Puritan  Adams,  no 
doubt,  suffered  by  being,  what  he  must  have  been,  a 
popular  preacher.  Had  Hooker  been  under  the 
necessity  of  delivering  his  "  Ecclesiastical  Polity  "  in 
discourses  at  St.   Paul's   Cross,  had   George  Herbert 


PURITAN  ADAMS.  391 

been  a  city  preacher,  or  Sir  Thomas  Browne  one  of 
the  divines  of  his  day,  in  no  instance  should  we 
have  had  the  rich,  rare,  and  peculiar  gems  they  have 
contributed  to  our  language.  Adams  is  very  popu- 
lar, but  his  style  is  often  very  rugged.  He  speaks  to 
the  populace,  and  his  fancies  and  conceits,  his  ana- 
grams and  conundrums  of  speech,  are  frequently  a 
snare  to  him  throughout  his  discourses.  He  is 
usually  rather  pretty  than  powerful.  Instances  of 
bad  taste  are  abundant  in  his  writings  ;  are  they  not 
also  said  to  be  abundant  in  the  writings  of  men  of 
his  time,  far  greater  than  he  ?  Moreover,  he  was  a 
preacher  of  an  extinct  order ;  for  sermons  on 
manners  have  now  gone  quite  out  of  date,  and  his 
were  such.  In  the  pulpit  he  portrayed  character, 
we  cannot  say  after  the  manner  of  Bishop  Earle,  and 
Qverbury,  and  Butler,  since  he  preceded  these 
writers.  Thus,  the  portrait  of  the  inconstant  and  un- 
stable man,  like  many  another  such  sketch,  justifies 
this  remark  : — 

"He  would  be  a  Proteus  too,  and  vary  kinds.  The 
reflection  of  every  man's  views  melts  him,  whereof  he  is 
as  soon  glutted.  As  he  is  a  noun,  he  is  only  adjective,  de- 
pending on  every  novel  persuasion ;  as  a  verb  he  knows 
only  the  present  tense.  To-day  he  goes  to  the  quay  to  be 
shipped  for  Rome ;  but  before  the  tides  come,  his  tide  is 
turned.  One  party  thinks  him  theirs,  the  adverse  theirs; 
he  is  with  both — with  neither ;  not  an  hour  with  himself. 
Because  the  birds  and  beasts  be  at  controversy,  he  will  be  a 
bat,  and  get  him  both  wings  and  teeth.  He  would  come  to 
heaven  but  for  his  halting.  Two  opinions  (like  two  water- 
men) almost  pull  him  apieces,  when  he  resolves  to  put  his 
judgment  into  a  boat,  and  go  somewhither ;  presently  he  steos 


392      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

back,  and  goes  with  neither.  It  is  a  wonder  if  his  afTections, 
being  but  a  little  lukewarm  water,  do  not  make  his  religion 
stomach-sick.  Indifference  is  his  ballast,  and  opinion  his 
sail;  he  resolves  not  to  resolve.  He  knows  not  what  he 
doth  hold.  He  opens  his  mind  to  receive  notions,  as  one 
opens  his  palm  to  take  a  handful  of  water ;  he  hath  very 
much,  if  he  could  hold  it.  He  is  sure  to  die,  but  not  what 
religion  to  die  in !  he  demurs  like  a  posed  lawyer,  as  if  delay 
could  remove  some  impediments.  He  knows  not  whether 
he  should  say  his  Paternoster  in  Latin  or  English ;  and  so 
leaves  it,  and  his  prayers,  unsaid.  He  makes  himself  ready 
for  an  appointed  feast ;  by  the  way  he  hears  of  a  sermon ; 
he  turns  thitherward  ;  and  yet,  betwixt  the  church-gate  and 
church-door,  he  thinks  of  business  and  retires  home  again. 
He  receives  many  judgments,  retains  none,  embracing  so 
many  faiths  that  he  is  little  better  than  an  infidel.  .  . 
He  loathes  manna,  after  two  days'  feeding,  and  is  almost 
weary  of  the  sun  for  perpetual  shining.  If  the  Tempje 
Pavement  be  ever  worn  with  his  visitant  feet,  he  will  run  far 
to  a  new  teacher.  .  .  .  His  best  dwelling  would  be  his 
confined  chamber,  where  he  would  trouble  nothing  but  his 
pillow.  He  is  full  of  business  at  church,  a  stranger  at 
home,  a  sceptic  abroad,  an  observer  in  the  street,  everywhere 
a  fool." 

But  while  he  performed  this  task  well,  it  required 
a  loose  and  rapid  manner  and  tongue  to  give  effect 
to  the  delineations.  He  draws  with  a  bold  hand 
the  pictures  of  the  manners  of  the  times.  Indeed,  it 
is  impossible  to  read  Adams  attentively  without 
feeling  that  the  writers  whose  names  we  have  just 
mentioned,  not  only  knew,  but  felt  themselves 
beneath  the  influence  of  his  portraitures.  He  is, 
perhaps,  rather  a  Divine  moralist  than  a  theologian. 
He  follows  no  thought  out  in  the  spirit  of  Aquinas 


PURITAN  ADAMS.  393 


and  the  schools,  or  even  in  the  spirit  and  manner 
of  St.  Augustine.  He  is  a  man  of  quick  impulses, 
and  often  seems  to  be  mastered  by  words  and  forms. 
He  never  ventures  into  the  region  of  abstract 
thought  ;  is  never  tormented  by  the  causes  of 
things.  He  is  a  preacher,  and  as  such,  he  holds  up 
the  mirror  to  his  hearers.  He  is  never  far  from 
them  in  heights  or  in  depths.  There  is  often  a 
cheerful,  easy  garrulity  about  him.  He  preached  in 
stirring  times,  and  he  knew  how  easily  to  turn  the 
popular  feelings  by  hints  and  references  to  the 
political  events  of  the  day.  He  lived  and  preached 
in  the  day  of  the  Gunpowder  Plot  ;  preaching  from 
the  text,  "  Thou  hast  caused  men  to  ride  over  our 
heads,"  he  exclaimed,  "  They  love  fire  still :  they 
were  then  for  faggots  ;  they  are  now  for  powder.  If 
these  be  Catholics,  there  are  no  cannibals."  The 
point  of  many  of  his  allusions  lay  in  the  memory, 
and,  therefore,  in  the  ready  sympathy  of  the  people. 
Of  illustrative  aphoristic  words  the  reader  may 
take  the  following  : — 

"A  beast  hath  one  kind  of  eye,  a  natural  man  two,  a 
Christian  three.  The  beast  hath  an  eye  of  sense  ;  the  natural 
man  of  sense  and  reason;  the  Christian  of  sense,  of  reason, 
and  faith." 

"  To  want  the  eyes  of  angels  is  far  worse  than  to  want 
the  eyes  of  beasts." 

"  Riches  are  called  bona  fortuna,  the  goods  of  fortune ; 
not  that  they  come  by  chance,  but  that  it  is  a  chance  if  they 
ever  be  good." 

"Philip  was  wont  to  say,  that  an  ass  laden  with  gold 
would  enter  the  gates  of  any  city ;  but  the  golden  load  of 
bribes  and  extortions  shall  bar  a  man  out  of  the  city  of 


394      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

God.  All  that  is  to  follow  is  like  quicksilver ;  it  will  be 
running." 

"  Not  seldom  a  russet  coat  shrouds  as  high  a  heart  as  a 
silken  garment.  You  shall  have  a  paltry  cottage  send  up 
more  black  smoke  then  a  goodly  manor.  It  is  not,  therefore, 
wealth,  but  vice,  that  excludes  men  out  of  heaven." 

"  There  are  some  that  '  kiss  their  own  hands '  (Job  xxxi. 
1 2)  for  every  good  turn  that  befals  them.  God  giveth  them 
blessings,  and  their  own  wit  or  strength  hath  the  praise." 

"  It  is  usual  with  God,  when  he  hath  done  beating  his 
children,  to  throw  the  rod  into  the  fire.  Babylon  a  long 
time  shall  be  the  Lord's  hammer  to  bruise  the  nations,  at 
last  itself  shall  be  bruised.  Judas  did  an  act  that  re- 
dounds to  God's  eternal  honour  and  our  blessed  salvation, 
yet  was  his  wages  the  gallows.  All  these  hammers,  axes, 
rods,  saws,  swords,  instruments,  when  they  have  done  those 
offices  they  never  meant,  shall,  for  those  they  have  meant,  be 
thrown  to  confusion." 

"The  five  senses  are  the  Cinque  Ports,  where  all  the 
great  traffic  of  the  devil  is  taken  in." 

"  When  the  heart  is  a  good  secretary,  the  tongue  is  a  good 
pen ;  but  when  the  heart  is  a  hollow  bell,  the  tongue  is  a 
loud  and  lewd  clapper.  Those  undefiled  virgins  admitted 
to  follow  the  Lamb  have  this  praise,  '  In  their  mouth  was 
found  no  guile.' " 

"  Ask  the  woman  that  hath  conceived  a  child  in  her 
womb  will  it  be  a  son  ?  Peradventure  so  !  Will  it  be  well- 
formed  and  featured  ?  Peradventure  so !  Will  it  be  wise  ? 
Peradventure  so !  Will  it  be  rich  ?  Peradventure  so  ! 
Will  it  be  long-lived  ?  Peradventure  so  !  Will  it  be  mortal  ? 
Yes,  this  is  without  peradventure ;  it  will  die  1 " 

The  following  passage  upon  the  almost  casual  ex- 
pression in  2  Peter  i.  1 7 — "  Such  a  voice  " — well 
illustrates  how  a  word  caught  him,  and  often  carried 


PURITAN  ADAMS.  395 

him  away  upon   a  stream  of  learned  and  gorgeous 
fancy  and  discourse  : — 

"  SUCH   A  VOICE. 

"  Tully  commends  voices  :  Socrates'  for  sweetness;  Lysias' 
for  subtlety;  Hyperides'  for  sharpness;  yEschines'  for 
shrillness ;  Demosthenes'  for  powerfulness ;  gravity  in 
Africanus ;  smoothness  in  Loelius — rare  voices  !  In  holy 
writ,  we  admire  a  sanctified  boldness  in  Peter ;  profoundness 
in  Paul ;  loftiness  in  John ;  vehemency  in  him  and  his 
brother  James,  those  two  sons  of  thunder;  fervency  in 
Simon  the  zealous.  Among  ecclesiastical  writers,  we  admire 
weight  in  TertuUian  ;  a  gracious  composure  of  well-mattered 
words  in  Lactantius  ;  a  flowing  speech  in  Cyprian  ;  a  familiar 
stateliness  in  Chrysostom ;  a  conscionable  delight  in  Bernard; 
and  all  these  graces  in  good  Saint  Augustine.  Some 
construed  the  Scriptures  allegorically,  as  Origen ;  some  lite- 
rally, as  Jerome  ;  some  morally,  as  Gregory ;  others  pathetic- 
ally, as  Chrysostom;  others  dogmatically,  as  Augustine. 
The  new  writers  have  their  several  voices :  Peter  Martyr, 
copiously  judicious  ;  Zanchius,  judiciously  copious.  Luther 
wrote  with  a  coal  on  the  walls  of  his  chamber  :  Res  et  verba 
Philippus  ;  res,  sine  verbis  Lutherus  ;  verba,  sine  re  Erasmus  : 
nee  res  nee  verba  Carlostadiiis.  Melancthon  had  both  style 
and  matter ;  Luther,  matter  without  style ;  Erasmus,  style 
without  matter ;  Carlstadt,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 
Calvin  was  behind  none,  not  the  best  of  them,  for  a  sweet 
dilucidation  of  the  Scriptures,  and  urging  of  solid  arguments 
against  the  Anti- Christians.  One  is  happy  in  expounding 
the  words  ;  another  in  delivering  the  matter ;  a  third  for 
cases  of  conscience ;  a  fourth  to  determine  the  school  doubts. 
But  now  put  all  these  together ;  a  hundred  Peters  and  Pauls; 
a  thousand  Bernards  and  Augustines ;  a  million  of  Calvins 
and  Melancthons.  Let  not  their  voices  be  once  named 
with  this  voice :  they  all  spake  as  children.  This  is  the 
voice  of  the  Ancient  of  Days ^ 


396      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Thus  he  rang  the  changes  very  effectively  on  a 
word,  as  in 

DUST. 

"  Diist,  the  matter  of  our  substance,  the  house  of  our 
souls,  the  original  grains  whereof  we  were  made,  the  top  of 
all  our  kindred.  The  glory  of  the  strongest  man,  the  beauty 
of  the  fairest  woman,  all  is  but  dust.  Dust,  the  only  com- 
pounder of  differences,  the  absolver  of  all  distinctions. 
Who  can  say  which  was  the  client,  which  the  lawyer ;  which 
the  borrower,  which  the  lender ;  which  the  captive,  which 
the  conqueror,  when  they  all  he  together  in  blended  dust  1 

'^  JDust ;  not  marble  nor  porphyry,  gold  nor  precious 
stone,  was  the  matter  of  our  bodies,  but  earth,  and  the 
fractions  of  the  earth,  dust.  Dust,  the  sport  of  the  wind, 
the  very  slave  of  the  besom.  This  is  the  pit  from  whence 
we  are  digged,  and  this  is  the  pit  to  which  we  shall  be 
resolved.  '  Dust  thou  art,  and  to  dust  thou  shalt  return 
again,'  Gen.  iii.  19.  They  that  sit  in  the  dust,  and  feel 
their  own  materials  about  them,  may  well  renounce  the 
ornaments  of  pride,  the  gulf  of  avarice,  the  foolish  lusts 
of  concupiscence.  Let  the  covetous  think,  What  do  I 
scrape  for?  a  little  golden  dust ;  the  ambitious,  What  do  I 
aspire  for  ?  a  little  honourable  dust ;  the  libidinous,  What  do 
I  languish  for  ?  a  little  animated  dust,  blown  away  with  the 
breath  of  God's  displeasure. 

"  Oh,  how  goodly  this  building  of  man  appears  when  it  is 
clothed  with  beauty  and  honour  !  A  face  full  of  majesty,  the 
throne  of  comeliness,  wherein  the  whiteness  of  the  lily  con- 
tends with  the  sanguine  of  the  rose  ;  an  active  hand,  an 
erected  countenance,  an  eye  sparkling  out  lustre,  a  smootli 
complexion,  arising  from  an  excellent  temperature  and  com- 
position ;  whereas  other  creatures,  by  reason  of  their  cold  and 
gross  humours,  are  grown  over,  beasts  with  hair,  fowls  with 
feathers,  fishes  with  scales.  Oh,  what  a  workman  was  this, 
that  could  raise  such  a  fabric  out  of  the  eartn,  and  lay  such 


PURITAN  ADAMS.  397 

orient  colours  upon  dust  1  Yet  all  is  but  dust,  walking, 
talking,  breathing  dust ;  all  this  beauty  but  the  effect  of  a 
well-concocted  food,  and  life  itself  but  a  walk  from  dust  to 
dust.  Yea,  and  this  man,  or  that  woman,  is  never  so 
beautiful  as  when  they  sit  weeping  for  their  sins  in  the  dust: 
as  Mary  Magdalene  was  then  fairest  when  she  kneeled  in  the 
dust,  bathing  the  feet  of  Christ  with  her  tears,  and  wiping 
them  with  her  hairs ;  like  heaven,  fair  sightward  to  us  that 
are  without,  but  more  fair  to  them  that  are  within. 

"The  dust  is  come  of  the  same  house  that  we  are,  and 
when  she  sees  us  proud  and  forgetful  of  ourselves,  she 
thinks  with  herself,  Why  should  not  she  that  is  descended  as 
well  as  we  bear  up  her  plumes  as  high  as  ours  ?  Therefore 
she  so  often  borrows  wings  of  the  wind,  to  mount  aloft  into 
the  air,  and  in  the  streets  and  highways  dasheth  herself  into 
our  eyes,  as  if  she  would  say.  Are  you  my  kindred,  and  will 
not  know  me?  Will  you  take  no  notice  of  your  own 
mother  ?  To  tax  the  folly  of  our  ambition,  the  dust  in  the 
street  takes  pleasure  to  be  ambitious." 

The  mind  of  Puritan  Adams  did  not  express  itself 
in  the  copious  and  sonorous  eloquence  of  Hooker, 
nor  had  his  fancy  the  solemn,  quaintly  gargoyled 
style  and  thoughtfulness,  the  subtle  paradoxical  style 
of  Sir  Thomas  Browne  ;  for,  as  we  have  already  said, 
he  was  a  preacher,  and  he  evidently  thought  con- 
stantly of  his  audience  ;  but  in  his  sermons  will  be 
found  many  of  the  best  characteristics  of  all  the  wit 
of  Fuller,  the  allegoric  lights  of  Bunyan,  and  much 
of  the  out-of-the-way  learning,  and  radiant  fancy  of 
Jeremy  Taylor.  His  method  and  style  of  treating  a 
text  or  subject  are  altogether  his  own  ;  a  style,  how- 
ever, adopted  and  found  very  taking  since  his  day. 
We  cannot  commend  it.  Thus  in  his  sermon,  "  A 
Generation    of    Serpents,"    from    the    text,    "  Their 


398      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

poison  is  like  the  poison  of  a  serpent,  like  the  deaf 
adder  that  stoppeth  her  ear,"  he  expounds  eleven 
characters — (i)  The  Salamander,  the  troublesome 
and  li4;igious  neighbour,  whoever  loves  and  lives  in 
the  fire  of  contention.  (2)  The  Dart,  that  is,  the 
angry  man.  (3)  The  Dipsas,  the  drunkard.  This 
serpent  lives  altogether  in  moorish  places  :  the 
serpent  in  the  fens,  the  man  at  the  ale-house.  (4) 
The  Crocodile,  the  hypocrite.  (5)  The  Cockatrice, 
said  to  kill  with  its  eyes — the  courtesan.  (6)  The 
Caterpillar,  or  the  earthworm,  emblem  of  the 
covetous.  (7)  The  Asp,  the  traitorous  seminary.  (8) 
The  Lizard,  an  emblem  of  the  slothful.  (9)  The  Sea 
Serpent,  the  pirate,  a  very  common  character  in 
Adams'  day.  (10)  The  Stellion,  the  extortioner. 
(11)  Draco,  the  great  red  dragon.  Sometimes  his 
illustrations  are  of  the  very  queerest.  Thus  he 
speaks  of  the  wonderful  making  of  the  tongue : — 

"To  create  so  little  a  piece  of  flesh,  and  to  put  such 
vigour  into  it :  to  give  it  neither  bones  nor  nerves,  yet  to 
make  it  stronger  than  arms  and  legs,  and  those  most  able 
and  serviceable  parts  of  the  body. 

**  Because  it  is  so  forcible,  therefore  hath  the  most  wise 
God  ordained  that  it  shall  be  but  little,  that  it  shall  be  but 
one.  That  so  the  paruity  and  singularity  may  abate  the 
vigour  of  it.  If  it  were  paired,  as  the  arms,  legs,  hands,  feet, 
it  would  be  much  more  unruly.  For  he  that  cannot  tame 
one  tongue,  how  would  he  be  troubled  with  twain ! 

**  Because  it  is  so  unruly,  the  Lord  hath  hedged  it  in,  as 
a  man  will  not  trust  a  wild  horse  in  an  open  pasture,  but 
prison  him  in  a  close  pound.  A  double  fence  hath  the 
Creator  given  to  confine  it — the  lips  and  the  teeth — that 
through  those  bounds  it  might  not  break." 


PURITAN  ADAMS.  399 

A  certain  quaint  and  frequently  happy  ingenuity 
characterises  all  the  sermons  and  the  writings  of 
Adams.  We  have  before  noticed  his  resemblance  to 
Herbert  :  the  quaintness  of  the  good  parson  of 
Bemerton  is  found  in  abundance  here,  not  less  than 
his  piety.  Churchman  as  he  was,  we  do  not  find, 
indeed,  the  same  temple  like  stillness,  or  carved 
imagery  of  thought.  Herbert's  life  was  secluded, 
lonely,  and  hermetic ;  that  of  Adams  was  passed, 
apparently  for  the  most  part,  in  London.  Herbert, 
too,  was  a  more  intense  ecclesiastic  ;  his  fervours 
were  monastic  ;  and  although  his  poems  are  not 
organ-like  airs,  they  are  notes  from  a  choir,  a  strange 
piercing  song.  Adams  was  a  man  of  action,  in- 
terested in  all  that  went  on  in  the  great  world  ;  and 
quaint  as  he  is,  his  quaintness  is  rather  that  which 
we  notice  in  the  carved  oak  tracery  of  some 
domestic  hall  or  ancient  manor,  than  the  writhing 
gargoyles,  or  the  dim  forms  of  ancient  church 
window.  He  did  not,  like  Herbert,  invite  his  fancies 
in  to  stay  and  converse  with  him  ;  he  followed  them 
out  ;  and  even  while  he  followed  one,  a  host  started 
up,  and  we  sometimes  think  he  chases  them  all  in 
rather  undignified  gait  or  mood.  Yet  there  are  some 
notes — and  they  are  very  frequent — which  remind  the 
reader  of  George  Herbert,  or,  more  aptly,  of  Jeremy 
Taylor. 

**  Men  and  brethren,  let  us  be  thankful.  Let  our  medita- 
tions travel  with  David  in  the  148th  Psalm,  first  up  into  heaven. 
Even  the  very  heavens  and  heights  praise  Him.  And  those 
blessed  angels  in  His  court  sing  His  glory.  Descend  we 
then  by  the  celestial  bodies,  and  we  shall  find  the  sun,  moon, 
and  all  the  stars  of  light  praising  Him.     A  little  lower,  we 


400      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

shall  perceive  the  meteors  and  upper  elements,  the  fire  and 
hail,  snow  and  vapour,  magnifying  Him,  even  the  wind  and 
storms  fulfilling  His  word.  Fall  we  upon  the  centre — the 
very  earth.  We  shall  hear  the  beasts  and  cattle,  mountains 
and  hills,  fruitful  trees  and  all  cedars,  extolling  His  name. 
The  chirping  birds  still  sing  sweet  psalms  and  carols  to  the 
Creator's  praise,  every  morning  when  they  rise,  every  evening 
when  they  go  to  rest.  Not  so  much  as  the  very  creeping 
things,  saith  the  Psalmist,  noisome  dragons,  and  crawling 
serpents  in  the  deeds,  but  they  do,  in  a  sort,  bless  their 
Maker.  Let  not  man,  then,  the  first-fruits  of  His  creatures, 
for  whose  service  all  the  rest  were  made,  be  unthankful." 

And  the  following  is  very  sweetly  expressed  : — 

*'  Pride,  fraud,  drunkenness,  is  as  Mount  Seir  to  the  lovers 
of  them.  But,  alas  !  how  unsafe  :  if  stronger  against,  and 
further  removed  from  the  hand  of  man,  yet  nearer  to  God's 
hand  in  heaven,  though  we  acknowledge  no  place  far  from 
God  or  from  His  thunder.  But  we  say,  it  is  not  always  the 
safest  sailing  on  the  top  of  the  mast.  To  live  on  the  moun 
tainous  height  of  a  temporal  estate  is  neither  wise  nor 
happy.  Men,  standing  in  the  shade  of  humble  valleys,  look 
up  and  wonder  at  the  height  of  hills,  and  think  it  goodly 
living  there,  as  Peter  thought  Tabor.  But  when,  with 
weary  limbs,  they  have  ascended,  and  find  the  beams  of  the 
sun  melting  their  spirits,  or  the  cold  blasts  of  wind  making 
their  sinews  slack,  flashes  of  lightning,  or  cracks  of  thunder, 
soonest  endangering  their  advanced  heads,  then  they  confess 
(checking  their  proud  conceit)  the  low  valley  is  safest.  For 
the  fruitful  dews  that  fall  fast  on  the  hills  stay  least  while 
there  ;  but  run  down  to  the  valley  :  and  though,  on  such  a 
promontory,  a  man  further  sees,  and  is  further  seen,  yet,  in 
the  valley,  where  he  sees  less  he  enjoys  more  1 " 

Again  : — 

"There  is  so  much  comfort  in  sorrow  as  to  make  all 


PURITAN  ADAMS.  401 

affliction  to  the  elect,  a  song  in  the  night.  Adversity  send 
us  to  Christ,  as  the  leprosy  sent  those  ten.  Prosperity 
makes  us  turn  our  backs  upon  Christ  and  leave  him,  as 
health  did  those  nine  (Luke  xvii.)  David's  sweetest  songs 
were  his  tears.  In  misery  he  spared  Saul,  his  great  adver- 
sary ;  in  peace,  he  killed  Uriah,  his  dear  friend.  The  wicked 
sing  with  grasshoppers,  in  fair  weather ;  but  the  faithful  (in 
this  Hke  sirens)  can  sing  in  a  storm.  When  a  man  cannot  find 
peace  upon  earth,  he  quickly  runs  to  heaven  to  seek  it 
Afflictions  sometimes  maketh  an  evil  man  good,  always 
a  good  man  better." 

We  could  imagine  the  author  of  the  "  Urn  Burial  " 
had  the  following  in  his  mind  in  a  famous  pas- 
sage : — 

"  No,  they  that  are  written  in  the  eternal  leaves  of  heaven, 
shall  never  be  wrapt  in  the  cloudy  sheets  of  darkness.  A 
man  may  have  his  name  written  in  the  chronicles,  yet  lost ; 
written  in  durable  marble,  yet  perish ;  written  on  a  monu 
ment  equal  to  a  Colossus,  yet  be  ignominious ;  written  on 
the  hospital  gates,  yet  go  to  hell ;  written  on  his  own  houses 
yet  another  come  to  possess  it.  All  these  are  but  writings  in 
the  dust,  or  upon  the  waters,  where  the  characters  perish  so 
soon  as  they  are  made.  They  no  more  prove  a  man  happy 
than  the  fool  could  prove  Pontius  Pilate  a  saint,  because  his 
name  was  written  in  the  Creed.  But  they  that  are  written 
i?i  heaven,  are  sure  to  inherit  it." 

But  it  was  the  age  of  strange  conceits  ;  and 
absurdities  inwrought  themselves  with  every  depart- 
ment of  taste  :  the  age  had  not  recovered  from  the 
grotesque  freaks  of  the  Elizabethan  time.  From 
those  outrageous  leaps,  and  acrobatic  displays  of 
genius,  even  Shakespeare  is  not  free,  and  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  time,  like  the  speech,  we  know  abounds 

26 


402      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

with  strange  displays ;  allegoric  lessons  were  con- 
stantly offering  their  teachings  from  classic  forms 
and  allusions,  and  essays  on  the  wisdom  of  the 
ancients  were  written  in  a  way  which  often  to  us 
seems  ludicrous  enough,  graceless  and  tasteless  in  the 
different  departments  of  domestic  architecture.  The 
pulpit  of  those  times  has  often  been  found  in  har- 
mony with  the  taste  which  only  employed  the  power 
of  its  genius 

*'  To  raise  the  ceiling's  fretted  height, 
Each  panel  in  achievements  clothing, 
Rich  windows  that  exclude  the  light. 
And  passages  that  lead  to  nothing." 

And  quaintness  and  queerness  did  assuredly  in- 
spire not  only  many  of  the  lines  of  the  poets  and 
designs  of  the  architects,  but  the  plans  and  concep- 
tions of  the  preachers  too.  Few  could  preach  with- 
out interlacing  their  English  with  little  bits  of  Latin, 
— to  our  ears  and  eyes  it  seems  the  merest  pedantry 
— purposeless,  for  nothing  is  illustrated,  and  nothing 
proved.  It  was  an  absurd  fashion  of  speech.  Here 
are  two  illustrations  of  this  most  singular  mode ; 
from  both  sermons  we  leave  out,  as  too  long,  the 
more  ludicrous  of  similar  passages.  From  the  text 
"  Take  thou  thy  son,"  etc. 

*'  Not  to  preface  away  any  more  tyme,  please  yow  to  call 
to  mind  these  four  generalls  observable  in  the  text. 

"  I . —  Victhfia,  the  Hoast  or  Sacrifice ;  described  here  by 
a  double  name.  i.  Proper,  Isaak.  2.  Appellative,  or  a 
name  of  relation,  Sonne;  which  likewise  is  further  illustrated 
by  two  other  attributes ;  the  one  taken  ab  ehdione  divina,  the 
other  ab  affectione  humana.     i.   Unigenitus,  his  onely  sonne; 


PURHAN  ADAMS. 


403 


there's  God's  inscrutable  election.  2.  Dilectus,  his  beloved 
Sonne ;  there's  Abraham's  deerest  affection. 

"  2. — SacerdoSy  the  Priest  which  was  to  offer  up  this 
sacrifice.  The  person  not  exprest,  but  in  the  word  Tolle, 
Take  thow.  God  speakes  to  Abraham :  The  Father  must 
bee  the  Priest  and  Butcher  of  his  own  sonne. 

"  3. — Altare,  the  Altar  or  Place  where  this  was  to  be 
offered ;  set  downe  i,  Generally,  the  land  of  Moryah.  2, 
Specially  super  uno  montium,  one  particular  mountayne 
in  that  land. 

"4. — Ritus,\hQ  Rite  and  Manner  of  sacrificinge,  or  the 
kind  and  quality  of  the  sacrifice :  Holocaustum,  it  must 
bee  an  whole  burnt  offringe." 

Again,  from  the  text,  "Then  said  Jesus,  Father, 
forgive  them,"  etc. 

"  In  which  Prayer  and  Supplication  of  his  these  six 
thinges  are  observable. 

"  I. — Q2ui7tdo,  the  tyme  when.  When  hee  was  hanginge 
now  on  the  Crosse,  and  ready  to  yield  up  the  Ghost ;  Tunc^ 
then  Jesus  sayd. 

"  2. — Qtiis,  the  party  prayinge.  Dixit  Jesus,  it  was 
Christ  Jesus. 

"3. — Cui  ox  ad  Quern,  the  object  to  whome  his  prayer  is 
directed ;  and  that  is  God  his  Father. 

"  4. — Quid,  the  matter  and  subject,  or  thinge  for  what  he 
prayed ;  which  is  Pardon  and  Forgivenes. 

"  5. — Pro  quibus,  for  whome  hee  prayeth  ;  Illis,  them,  his 
Enemyes. 

"6. —  Qiare,  the  ground  and  reason  of  his  petition; 
which  was  theyr  Ignorance;  for  they  know  not  what  they  doe. 

"  The  Tyme,  when :  the  Persons,  who ;  the  Person,  to 
whome ;  the  Persons,  for  whome ;  the  Thinge,  for  what  j 
and  the  Cause,  wherefore." 


404      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

In  a  state  of  transition  from  the  times  which  pro- 
duced these  curious  formularies  was  the  age  when 
Thomas  Adams  began  to  preach.  He  must  have  been 
contemporary  with  Bishop  Andrewes  and  Dr.  Donne. 
We  love  Bishop  Andrewes,  but  his  style,  almost 
through  every  line  of  it,  abounds  with  strange  read- 
ings and  words,  thus,  "  Wherefore  art  Thou  red  in 
Thine  apparel  ? "  "  Let  Him  be  arrayed  in  scarlet,  it 
is  His  due."     His  "  Doctor's  weed  " — 

**0N   THE   BIRTH   OF   CHRIST  AT   EPHRATA. 

"  Even  so,  Lord,  saith  our  Saviour,  for  so  is  thy  pleasure. 
And  since  it  is  His  pleasure  so  to  deal,  it  is  His  further  plea- 
sure (and  it  is  our  lesson  out  of  this  Bethlehem  minimd).  Even 
this,  ne  minima  miiwni,  that  we  set  not  little  by  that  which 
is  little,  unless  we  will  so  set  by  Bethlehem  and  by  Christ 
and  all.  He  will  not  have  little  places  villified,  little  Zoar 
will  save  the  body,  little  Bethlehem  the  soul,  nor  have, 
saith  Zacherie,  dies  parvus — little  times — despised,  unless  we 
despise  this  day,  the  Feast  of  Humility.  Nor  have  one  of 
these  little  ones  offended.  Why?  for,  Ephrata  may  make 
amends  for,  parvula,  ex  tefor  tu." 

How  quaint  and  singular  reads  the  following : — 

"Will  ye  now  to  this  inglorious  Signe  heare  a  glorious 
Sofig  ;  to  this  cratch  of  humilitie,  a  hymne  of  caelestiall  har- 
monie?  If  the  6'/^«.?  mislike  you,  ye  cannot  but  like  the  Song, 
and  the  Queer  that  sing  it.  The  song  I  shall  not  be  able  to 
reach  to,  will  ye  but  see  the  Queer?  and  that  shall  serve  for  this 
time  :  For,  by  all  meanes,  before  I  end,  I  would  deal  with 
somewhat  that  might  ballance  this  Signe  of  His  low  estate. 
This  the  Evajigdists  never  faile  to  doe ;  Ever,  they  look  to 
this  point  carefully:  If  they  mention  ought,  that  may  offend, 
to  wipe  it  away  streight,  and  the  Scandall  of  it,  by  some 


PURITAN  ADAMS.  405 

other  high  regard.  See  you  a  sort  of  poore  Shepherds  ? 
Stay,  anci  ye  shall  see  a  troope  of  God's  Angels.  Heare  ye 
one  say,  layd  in  the  cratch  below  ?  abide,  and  ye  shall  heare 
many  sing,  Glorieon  high,  in  honour  of  Him  that  lyeth  in  it. 

"  Vidisti  vilia  (saith  St.  Ambrose)  audi  mirisica  :  Were 
the  things  meane  you  have  seen  ? 

"  Wonderful  shall  they  be,  ye  now  shall  heare  and  see 
both.  Vilescit  prcesepe,  ecce  Angelicis  cantibus  honoratur : 
Is  the  Cratch  meane  ?  Meane  as  it  is,  it  is  honoured 
with  the  musike  of  Angels ;  it  hath  the  whole  Queer  of 
Heaven  to  sing  about  it.  This  also  will  prove  a  signe,  if  it 
be  well  looked  into ;  a  counter-signe  to  the  other :  That,  of 
His  humilities  ;  this  of  His  glorie." 

Lancelot  Andrewes  illustrates  the  monastic  method 
in  a  Protestant  Church  ;  let  us  listen  to  him  intently, 
bring  to  his  words,  what  we  will  certainly  meet  in 
them,  a  spirit  of  prayerful  devotion,  forgive  the  quaint- 
ness  of  the  preacher  for  the  holiness  which  shines 
through  all  his  words,  and  we  shall  not  listen  in  vain. 
His  sermons  will  bear  modern  adaptation,  if  the  mind 
adapting  them  and  using  them  be  itself  informed,  and 
filled  with  ardent  and  seraphic  reverence  for  the 
great  truth  of  the  Incarnation  ;  for  indeed  there  is 
the  glow  of  a  seraph  about  him,  quaint  as  he  is, 
the  aureola  of  a  saint  shines  over  him  ;  cloistral  and 
monastic,  his  sermons  are  wholly  free  from  the  wider 
inspirations  of  thought  and  worldly  knowledge  :  they 
are  narrow  in  their  range,  but  they  are  intense  ;  the 
live  coal  from  off  the  altar  has  given  to  all  his 
faculties  a  pure  flame  ;  but  even  as  a  coal  presents 
strange  and  grotesque  faces  in  the  fire,  so  with  the 
ardours  of  his  style,  they  are  as  grotesque  as  they 
are  holy ;  fancies  in  words  took  him  captive,  often, 


406      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

it  must  be  admitted,  very  pleasantly.  Thus  Christ 
the  Conqueror  coming  from  Edom  and  from  the 
grave  : — 

"  And  comming  backe  thus,  from  the  debellation  of  the 
spiritual  Edojn,  and  the  breaking  up  of  the  true  Bozra  indeed, 
it  is  wondered,  W7io  it  should  be.  Note  this  that  nobody 
knew  Christ  at  His  rising;  neither  Mary  Magdalen  nor 
they  that  went  to  Emmaiis.  No  more  doth  the  Prophet 
here. 

"  Now  there  was  reason  to  aske  this  question,  for  none 
would  ever  think  it  to  be  Christ.  There  is  great  oddes  ;  it 
cannot  be  He. 

"  I.  Not  He :  He  was  put  to  death  and  put  into  His  grave 
and  a  great  stone  upon  Him  not  three  days  since.  This 
Partie  is  alive  and  lives  alike.  His  Ghost  it  cannot  be  :  He 
glides  not  (as  Ghosts,  they  say,  doe)  but  paces  the  ground 
very  stro?igly. 

^^ Not  He:  He  had  His  apparell  shared  amongst  the 
souldiers  ;  was  left  all  naked.  This  Partie  hath  gotten  Him 
on  glorious  apparell,  rich  scarlet. 

"  Not  He:  if  He  come,  He  must  come  in  white,  in  the  linne?i 
He  was  lapped  in,  and  laid  in  his  grave.  This  Partie  comes 
in  quite  another  colour,  all  in  red.  So  the  colours  suit  not. 
To  be  short,  not  He ;  He  was  put  to  a  foile — to  a  foule  foile 
— as  ever  was  any  :  they  did  to  Him  even  what  they  listed  ; 
scorned  and  insulted  upon  Him.  //  was  then  the  houre  and 
power  of  darknesse.  This  Partie,  whatsoever  He  is,  hath 
got  the  upper  hand,  won  the  field  j  marches  stately,  Con- 
guerour-\\ke.     His  the  day  sure." 

The  following  little  extract  illustrates  the  refresh- 
ing way  Andrewes  had  of  pressing  out  comfortable 
truth  in  his  barbarous  Latinities. 

"There   was   then   a   new   begetting,   this   day.     And  if 


PURITAN  ADAMS.  407 


a  new  begetting,  a  new  Paternitie  and  Fraternitie,  both. 
By  the  hodie  gemiite  of  Christmas,  how  soone  Hee  was 
borne  of  the  Virgin's  wombe.  Kee  became  our  brother 
(sinne,  except)  subject  to  all  our  infirmities  ;  so  to  mortalitie 
and  even  to  death  it  selfe.  And  by  death  that  brotherhood 
had  beene  dissolved,  but  for  this  dayes  rising.  By  the  hodie 
genuite  of  Easter,  as  soon  as  Hee  was  borne  again  of  the 
wombe  of  the  grave,  Hee  begins  a  new  brother-hood,  founds  a 
new  fraternitie  straight ;  adopts  us  (wee  see)  anew  againe, 
by  His  fratres  meos ;  and  thereby,  Hee  that  was  ^rimogenitus 
d  mortiiiSy  becomes  primogenitus  inter  multos  frat7-es :  when 
the  first  begotten  from  the  dead,  then  the  first  begotten  in  this 
respect,  among  ?na?iy  brethren.  Before  Hee  was  ours  :  now 
wee  are  His.  That  was  by  the  mother's  side  ;  so,  Hee  ours. 
This  is  by  Patrem  vestrum,  the  Father's  side ;  So  wee  His. 
But  halfe-b  rot  hers  before  ;  Never  of  whole  bloud,  till  now. 
Now,  by  Father  and  Mother  both,  Fratres  germanie,  Fratres 
fraterrifni,  we  cannot  be  more." 

Bishop  Andrewes  talks  like  an  old  monk  of  the 
cloister,  devout,  narrow,  and  intense  ;  John  Donne, 
another  of  the  courtly  preachers  of  those  times,  talks 
like  a  monastic  schoolman  ;  he  also  was  a  contem- 
porary of  Adams :  they  were  both  city  preachers. 
But  Donne  was  in  himself  wonderful,  he  was  a  kind 
of  poetical  Aquinas,  in  the  pulpit  most  metaphysical 
of  preachers  ;  he  ran  his  speculative  spirit  into  all 
strange  subtleties,  his  fancies  were  not  verbal  but 
real.  His  mind,  like  mysterious  lenses  and  glasses, 
explored  the  infinity  revealed  in  little  things  and 
large  things  ;  the  remote  orbs  of  distant,  dark,  and 
inaccessible  heavens  ;  the  unsuspected  recesses  of 
homely  objects  and  tritest  truths.  His  gospel  was 
the  same    as   that   which  Andrewes  preached.     As 


4o8      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

compared  with  Adams  both  Andrewes  and  Donne 
had  a  more  semi-Lutheran  and  semi-Romanist  way 
of  regarding  it,  in  their  ideas  of  the  functions  of  the 
Church,  and  perhaps  in  their  conceptions  of  a  moral, 
rather  than  forensic  justification,  althougli  none  of 
these  things  must  be  pressed  too  closely  as  the 
attributes  of  their  theological  system.  Donne  had  a 
consuming  genius  ;  its  flames  slew  him.  But  we  have 
referred  to  him  because,  amidst  all  its  magnificence, 
he  illustrates  the  eccentricity  of  the  age  in  thought 
and  in  style  :  "  Every  man  is  but  a  sponge,  a  sponge 
filled  with  tears."  "  We  fell  by  Adam's  fall  into  the 
dirt,  from  that  we  are  washed  in  baptism,  but  we  fell 
into  a  heap  of  sharp  stones  too,  and  we  feel  all  those 
wounds  and  bruises  our  whole  lives  after."  There  is 
nothing  simply  barbarous  in  his  style  ;  his  fancies 
startle  :  they  do  not  degrade. 

"  CLOUDS. 

"  We  take  a  star  to  be  the  thickest,  and  so  the  impurest, 
and  ignoblest  part  of  that  sphere,  and  yet,  by  the  illustration 
of  the  sun,  it  becomes  a  glorious  one.  Clouds  are  but  the 
beds,  and  wombs  of  distempered  and  malignant  impressions  of 
vapours,  and  exhalations,  and  the  furnaces  of  lightnings  and 
of  thunder;  yet  by  the  presence  of  Christ,  and  his  employ- 
ment, these  clouds  are  made  glorious  chariots  to  bring  him 
and  his  saints  together.  Those  vapours  and  clouds  which 
David  speaks  of,  St.  Augustine  interprets  of  the  ministers  of 
the  church,  that  they  are  those  clouds.  Those  ministers 
may  have  clouds  in  their  understanding  and  knowledge 
(some  may  be  less  learned  than  others),  and  clouds  in  their 
elocution  and  utterance  (some  may  have  an  unacceptable 
deliverance),  and  clouds  in  their  aspect  and  countenance 
(some  may  have  an  unpleasing  presence),  and  clouds  in 


PURITAN  ADAMS.  409 

their  respect  and  maintenance  (some  may  be  oppressed  in 
their  fortunes),  but  still  they  are  such  clouds  as  are  sent  by 
Christ  to  bring  thee  up  to  him.  And  as  the  children  of 
Israel  received  direction  and  benefit,  as  well  by  the  pillar 
of  cloud  as  by  the  pillar  of  fire,  so  do  the  children  of  God  in 
the  church,  as  well  by  preachers  of  inferior  gifts,  as  by 
higher.  In  nubibus ;  Christ  does  not  come  in  a  chariot  and 
send  carts  for  us.  He  comes  as  he  went ;  This  same  Jesus 
which  is  taken  upfront  you  into  heaven  shall  so  come,  in  like 
maimer  as  ye  have  seen  him  go  into  heaven  ;  say  the  angels  at 
his  ascension." 

"god  in  a  circle. 

"  He  shows  no  mercy  which  you  can  call  his  greatest 
mercy :  his  mercy  is  never  at  the  highest ;  whatsoever 
he  hath  done  for  thy  soul  or  for  any  other  in  applying 
himself  to  it,  he  can  exceed  that.  Only  he  can  raise  a 
tower  whose  top  shall  reach  to  heaven ;  the  basis  of  the 
highest  is  but  the  earth ;  but  though  thou  be  but  a  tabernacle 
of  earth,  God  shall  raise  thee  piece  by  piece  into  a  spiritual 
building ;  and  after  one  story  of  creation,  and  another  of  voca- 
tion, and  another  of  sanctification,  he  shall  bring  thee  to  meet 
thyself  in  the  bosom  of  thy  God  where  thou  wast  at  first,  in 
an  eternal  election  ;  God  is  a  circle  himself,  and  he  will  make 
thee  one ;  go  thou  not  about  to  square  either  circle,  to 
bring  that  which  is  equal  in  itself  to  angles  and  corners,  into 
dark  and  sad  suspicions  of  God,  or  of  thyself,  that  God  can 
give,  or  that  thou  canst  receive,  no  more  mercy  than  thou 
hast  had  already.  This,  then  is  the  course  of  God's  mercy ; 
he  proceeds  as  he  begun,  which  was  the  first  branch  of  this 
second  part;  it  is  always  in  motion  and  always  moving  towards 
ally  always  perpendicular,  right  over  every  one  of  us,  and 
always  circular,  always  communicable  to  all ;  and  then  the 
particular  beam  of  this  mercy  shed  upon  Ahaz  here  in 
our  text  is  Dabii  signum,  The  Lord  shall  give  you  a  sign.  It 
is  a  great  degree  of  mercy  that   he  affords  us  signs.    A 


410      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

natural  man  is  not  made  of  reason  alone,  but  of  reason 
and  sense ;  a  regenerate  man  is  not  made  of  faith  alone, 
but  of  faith  and  reason ;  and  signs,  eternal  things,  assist 
us  all." 

But,  as  we  have  said  of  Adams,  he  is  now  un- 
known, save  by  these  reliquaries  of  his  pen  ;  like  his 
predecessor  in  metropolitan  fame  for  Puritan  speech, 
Henry  Smith,  of  whom,  indeed,  little  as  we  know, 
we  know  more,  for  of  him  we  have  a  rumour,  and  an 
&^%y — such  as  it  is — but  of  Adams  we  know  nothing. 
Surely  these  felicitous  and  happy  sayings,  these  bril- 
liant and  vivid  pieces,  must  have  won  the  ears  of  multi- 
tudes ;  they  could  not  have  been  delivered  with  any 
cold  and  feeble  mannerism.  His  friendships  have  gone, 
too.  He  knew  Donne  ;  they  both  ministered  in  the 
same  old  St.  Paul's  Church.  What  appreciation  had 
they  of  each  other — the  subtle,  metaphysical  speaker, 
with  the  clear,  practical  one — the  quaint  creature, 
full  of  visible  oddities  of  eloquence,  with  the  solemn 
spirited  man,  the  dark  sayings  of  whose  harp,  none 
the  less  practical,  spoke  to  the  depths  of  inner  con- 
duct and  speculation  }  It  is  interesting  to  think  of 
Adams  in  London,  while  the  great  roar  of  events 
rose  to  the  ear  from  the  Continent,  and  throughout 
the  land.  It  was  a  glorious  age — the  age  immedi- 
ately succeeding  that  of  Elizabeth — the  great 
struggle  rising  in  England  between  the  people  and 
prerogative;  the  great  struggle  rising  in  France,  too; 
— the  age  of  the  independence  of  Holland  ;  the  age 
of  the  Mayflower ;  the  age  of  the  murder  of  Raleigh; 
of  the  fall  of  Bacon ;  of  the  translation  of  the 
Bible;  of  the  Quixotism  of  Laud;  of  the  execution  of 
Strafford  ;  of  the  rise  of  the  civil  war.     Adams  was 


PURITAN  ADAPTS.  411 

preaching  through  all  these  events,  and  in  the  most 
powerful  and  wealthy  district  of  the  city  of  London. 
He  was  there  when  the  members  took  shelter  from 
the  King  within  its  liberties  ;  and  the  spirit  of  that 
free  age  seems  to  speak  out  in  the  words  of  the 
man.  What  does  it  matter  really  that  we  know 
so  little  of  him  ?  As  men  live  neither  in  their 
names  nor  in  their  bodies,  so  neither  do  they  live  in 
their  tombs  nor  in  the  hatchments  over  them  ;  and 
of  multitudes  of  men,  perhaps  as  worthy  or  as  mighty 
as  Adams,  we  know  as  little,  or  less.  So  drifts 
away  many  a  simple  parish  minister,  or  conventicle 
teacher  ;  no  tombstone  marks  his  grave,  no  printed 
piece  of  paper  commemorates  his  name,  but  the 
"  enduring  substance  "  abides  in  spiritual  power  con- 
ferred, although  its  ancestry  cannot  be  traced. 
Fame  is  a  most  capricious  inheritance,  even  like 
wealth  ;  it  is  distributed  very  blindly.  We  know  a 
great  deal  about  that  ridiculous  Pepys,  and  that 
absurd  jackanapes  Brummell.  Our  author  vanishes 
entirely  out  of  sight,  wraps  his  invisible  cloak  about 
him,  and  goes  altogether  away  from  a  world  which 
did  not,  it  would  seem,  treat  him  too  well  ;  becomes 
possessor  of  the  "  oblivion  which  is  not  to  be  bribed," 
and  some  may  think  his  lot  enviable ! 

His  works  have  long  been  prized  as  a  vast 
mine  of  illustrations,  a  fertile  field  of  happy  imagery. 
Adams  we  in  no  case  commend  as  the  architect  of 
thought  or  of  theology.  His  views — and  decidedly 
Calvinistic  they  were — were  clear  to  himself,  but 
they  were  expressed  in  too  much  of  the  style  of 
Paul's  Cross  to  be  the  best  means  for  furnishing  a 
student  ;  but,  for  a  happy,  witty  characteristic,  for 


4t2      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

the  quaint  intermingling  of  learning,  allusion,  fable, 
and  fancy,  for  felicitous  description,  for  powerful 
appeals  to,  blows,  indeed,  on,  the  conscience  of  the 
hearer — say  rather,  vivid  lightning-like  glances  into 
the  eyes  of  conscience — Adams,  we  believe,  has  few 
rivals  and  scarcely  any  superior. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

THE  PREACHERS  OF  WILD  WALES^ 

ALTHOUGH  we  have  already  treated  this 
subject  so  copiously  in  a  former  work,*  we 
feel  that  a  volume  on  the  vocation  of  the  preacher 
would  scarcely  be  complete  without  some  reference 
to  these  most  marvellous  and  interesting  men  ;  for 
in  the  history  of  preaching  there  is  not  a  more 
curious  chapter  than  that  of  the  strange  preachers  of 
wild  Wales.  They  have  an  idiosyncrasy  quite  as 
singular  as  that  of  the  country  in  which  they  carried 
on  their  ministrations.  The  preaching  friars  of 
the  Dark,  or  Middle  Ages  are  very  remarkable  from 
the  occasional  glimpses  we  are  able  to  obtain  of 
them.  Very  remarkable  also  the  band  of  men 
evoked  by  the  rise  of  Methodism  in  England,  those 
who  spread  out  all  over  the  land,  treading  the  paths 
indicated  by  the  voice  and  iinger  of  Whitefield  and 
Wesley.  Very  entertaining,  too,  are  the  stories  of 
the  preachers  of  the  backwoods  of  America,  the 
sappers  and  miners  who  cleared  a  way  for  the  plant- 
ing of  the  word  in  the  forests  of  the  far  west. 

The  Welsh  preachers  are  unlike  any  of  these, — 
they  had  a  character  altogether  their  own  ;  a  great 

*  "  Christmas  Evans — the  Preacher  of  Wild  Wales."     By 
Paxton  Hood.     Messrs.  Hodder  and  Stoupliton. 


414      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

many  of  them  were  men  of  eminent  genius, 
glowing  with  feeling  and  fancy ;  never  having 
known  college  training  or  culture,  many  were,  never- 
theless,  men  who  had  somehow  attained  a  singular 
variety  of  knowledge,  lore  which  would  perhaps  be 
despised  as  unscientific  and  unclassified,  but  which 
was  not  the  less  curious,  and,  to  the  Celtic  mind, 
enchanting.  They  all  lived,  and  fared  hard  ;  all 
their  thoughts  and  fancies  were  high.  They  were 
eminently  men  of  "  low  living  and  high  thinking," 
but  whom,  if  they  marched  before  us  now  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  Brighton  in  England,  or  Boston 
in  America  would  regard  as  a  set  of  very  rough 
tykes.  Perhaps  the  nineteenth  century  would  regard 
Elijah,  Amos,  Nahum,  and  sundry  other  equally 
respectable  persons  in  much  the  same  way.  Rude 
and  rough  in  gait  and  manner,  the  rudeness  and  the 
roughness  would  perhaps  be  forgotten  if  we  could 
interpret  the  torrent  and  the  wail  of  their  speech,  and 
be  for  a  short  time  beneath  the  power  of  the  visions 
of  which  they  were  the  rapt  seers  and  unveilers  ;  to 
us  several  of  them, — notably  John  Elias  and  Christ- 
mas Evans, — seem  to  realise  the  idea  of  the  Ancient 
Mariner  : — 

*'  I  pass  like  night  from  land  to  land, 
I  have  strange  gift  of  speech  ; 
The  moment  that  his  face  I  see, 
I  know  the  man  that  must  hear  me ; 
To  him  my  tale  I  teach." 

For  preaching  is  in  Wales  the  great  national 
characteristic.  The  dwellers  among  those  mountains, 
and  upon  those  hill-sides,  have  no  concerts,  no 
theatres,  no  means  of  stimulating  or  satisfying  their 


THE  PREACHERS  OF  WILD    WALES.      415 

curiosity.  We, — who  now  care  little  for  preaching, 
and  to  whom  the  whole  sermon  system  is  perhaps 
becoming  tedious, — we  can  have  but  little  sympathy 
with  that  form  of  religious  society  where  the  pulpit 
is  the  orchestra,  the  stage,  and  the  platform,  and 
where  the  charms  of  music,  of  painting,  and  of 
acting  are  looked  for  and  found  in  the  preacher  ;  we 
should  very  likely  be  disposed  to  look  with  com- 
placent pity  upon  such  a  state  of  society  (it  has  not 
yet  expired)  where  the  Bulwers  and  Dickenses,  the 
Thackerays  and  the  Scotts  are  altogether  unknown, 
but  where  the  peculiar  forms  of  their  genius, — 
certainly  without  their  peculiar  education, — display 
themselves  in  the  pulpit.  If  our  readers  suppose  a 
large  amount  of  ignorance,  yet  it  is  such  an  ignorance 
as  that  which  developed  itself  in  Job  and  his  com- 
panions in  his  age, — an  ignorance  like  that  we  may 
conceive  in  Homer,  or  in  yEschylus.  In  fact,  in 
Wales  the  gates  of  every  man's  being  have  been 
opened.  It  is  possible  to  know  much  of  the 
grammar,  the  history,  and  the  lexicography  of  things, 
and  yet  to  be  so  utterly  ignorant  of  the  things 
themselves,  as  never  to  have  felt  the  sentiment  of 
strangeness  or  of  terror,  and,  without  having  been 
informed  of  their  names,  it  is  possible  to  have  been 
brought  into  the  presence  and  power  of  the  things 
themselves.  Thus  the  ignorance  of  one  man  may  be 
higher  than  the  intelligence  of  another ;  there  may 
be  a  large  memory  and  a  very  narrow  consciousness  ; 
— on  the  contrary,  there  may  be  a  large  consciousness, 
while  the  forms  it  embraces  may  be  uncertain  and 
undefined. 

But  then  the  language !     Of  course  the  language 


41 6      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  this  preaching  power ; 
on  all  hands  the  Welsh  is  acknowledged  to  be  a 
wonderful  language.  It  is  a  speaking,  and  a  living 
language  without  any  shallows,  a  language  which 
seems  to  compel  the  necessity  of  thought  before 
using  it ;  our  English  language  is  fast  becoming 
serviceable  to  that  large  part  of  the  human  family 
who  speak  without  thinking ;  to  this  state  the 
Welsh  can  never  come :  that  unaccommodating 
tongue  only  moves  with  a  soul  behind  it.  A 
Welshman  will  tell  you  there  is  no  language  like 
it  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  but  that  is  a  testimony 
borne  by  many  scholars  who  are  not  Welshmen  ; 
perhaps  there  is  no  other  language  which  so  in- 
stantly conveys  a  meaning,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
touches  emotion  to  the  quick.  It  is  full  of  nomi- 
natives, nouns  substantive,  and  adjectives,  and  there- 
fore it  is  singularly  realising ;  it  is  rich  in  vowel 
power,  and  therefore  it  touches  emotion.  True, 
like  the  Welshman  himself,  it  is  bony,  and  strangers 
to  its  power,  who  look  at  it  and  cannot  speak  it, 
and  never  heard  it  spoken,  laugh  at  its  never- 
ending  succession  of  consonants.  Somebody  has 
said  that  the  whole  language  is  as  if  it  were  made 
up  of  such  words  as  our  word  "  strength  ; "  but  if 
our  readers  will  compare  in  their  minds  the  effect 
of  the  word  "  power "  as  contrasted  with  the  word 
"  strength,"  which  is  the  synonym  of  power,  they  will 
feel  something  of  the  force  of  the  language,  and  its 
fitness  for  the  purpose  of  conveying  impression  ; — 
but  still  this  conveys  but  a  poor  idea  of  its  great 
attributes.  It  is  so  literal  that  a  competent  hearer, 
or  reader,  realises  instantly,  from  its  words,  things. 


THE  PREACHERS  OF   WILD    WALES.      417 

Well  do  we  remember  sitting,  in  Wales,  with  a 
group  of  Welsh  ministers  and  Welshmen,  round  a 
pleasant  tea-table  ;  we  were  talking  of  the  Welsh 
language,  and  one  of  our  company,  who  had  perhaps 
done  more  than  any  one  in  his  country  for  popular 
Welsh  literature,  and  who  was  one  of  the  order  of 
eminent  Welsh  preachers  of  whom  we  are  speaking, 
broke  forth  :  "  Oh,"  he  said,  "  you  English  people 
cannot  see  all  the  things  in  your  Bible  that  a 
Welshman  can  see  ;  now  your  word  '  blessed,' — it 
seems  a  very  dear  sweet  thing  to  an  Englishman 
and  to  a  Welshman  ;  but  a  Welshman  sees  the 
thmg  in  the  word  '  Gwyn  Ei  fyd,'  that  is  a  white 
world,  white — literally  *  White  their  world,'  so  a 
Welshman  would  see  there  is  '  a  white  world  '  for 
the  pure  in  heart,  a  white  world  for  the  poor  in 
spirit,  a  white  world  for  them  that  are  persecuted 
for  righteousness'  sake;  and  when  you  read,  'Blessed 
is  the  man  unto  whom  the  Lord  imputeth  not 
iniquity,'  the  Welshman  reads  his  Bible,  and  sees 
there,  a  white  world,  for  such  an  one,  that  is,  all 
sin  wiped  out  and  the  place  quite  clean  to  begin 
again." 

We  say  this  is  a  mighty  power  in  the  Welsh 
language,  that,  as  a  window,  it  is  so  clear ;  the 
Welshman  is  able  to  see  the  thing  in  the  word. 

The  best  essay  on  rhetoric  which  we  know  is  in  the 
old  "  Welsh  Triads  and  Proverbs."  He  who  would 
remember  and  act  upon  its  rules  would  very  likely 
gain  more  from  the  old  prescription  than  from  the 
study  of  Blair,  Quintilian,  or  Whately.  There  are 
three  indispensables  of  language, — purity,  copiousness, 
and  aptness.      There  are  three  supports  of  language, 

27 


4i8      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

— order,  strength,  and  harmony.  There  are  three 
uses  of  language, — to  relate,  to  describe,  to  excite. 
There  are  three  correct  qualities  of  language, — 
correct  construction,  correct  etymology,  and  pronun- 
ciation. There  are  three  marks  of  the  purity  of  lan- 
guage,—  the  intelligible,  the  pleasurable,  the  credible. 
Three  things  constitute  just  description, — ^just  selec- 
tion of  words,  just  construction  of  language,  and  just 
comparison.  Three  things  appertain  to  just  selection, 
— best  language,  best  order,  best  object. 

But  the  vowel  power  of  the  language  constitutes 
its  strength  ;  consonants  give  bones  to  language, 
but  vowels  are  its  nerve,  its  muscle,  its  human  life  ; 
and  what  a  mistake  they  make  who  charge  upon 
the  Welsh  language  an  especial  multiplicity  of 
consonants !  Most  persons  would  be  surprised  to 
know  that  it  has  seven  vowels, — in  addition  to  these, 
the  double  /,  double  d,  and  ch  have  all  the  power 
and  softness  of  the  vowel  ;  the  idea  of  harshness, 
therefore  is  an  error.  To  us  it  seems  that  it  must 
be  on  account  of  its  vowel  power  that  Welsh  preach- 
ing is  so  great,  in  the  melody  of  the  refrain,  the 
repetition  of  the  word  or  text  over  and  over  again  ; 
— high  strains  of  thought  rendered  into  the  sweet 
variety,  melting  tenderness,  and  grand  strength  of 
the  language  of  Wales  ;  tender  and  terrible,  sweetness 
alternating  with  strength.  Welsh  preaching  derived 
in  its  greatest  men,  how  much  from  its  power  of 
varying  accent. 

Our  readers  may  conceive  it  for  themselves  if 
they  ever  listened  to  that  wonderful  chorus  in 
Handel's  Messiah^  which  Herder,  the  great  German, 
truly  called  the  Christian  Epos  ;  but  the  chorus  to 


THE  PREACHERS  OF  WHD    WALES.      419 

which  we  refer  is  that  singular  piece  of  varying 
pictorial  power  "  Unto  us  a  Child  is  born,"  repeated 
again  and  again,  in  sweet,  whispered  accents,  playing 
upon  the  thought ;  first,  the  shepherds  having  kept 
watch  over  their  flock  by  night,  and  having  heard 
the  angels  say  it,  repeat  it — "  For  unto  us  a  Child 
is  born  ;  "  and  then  rolls  in  the  grand  thunder — "  And 
His  name  shall  be  called  Wonderful  ! "  and  then 
we  return  to  the  sweet  silvery  accents — "  For  unto 
us  a  Child  is  born  ; " — and  we  see  the  wise  men 
approaching  and  offering  their  gifts,  and  as  they  do 
so,  again  roll  in  the  grand  and  overwhelming  words, 
"  And  His  name  shall  be  called  Wonderful !  "  and, 
yet  again,  that  for  which  we  waited,  the  tender, 
silvery  whisperings — "  Unto  us  a  Child  is  born," 
until  it  seems  as  if  angels  and  shepherds,  flocks 
and  herds,  fields,  stars,  and  wise  men  all  united 
with  the  family  of  Jesus  beneath  the  song,  singing 
through  the  clear  heavens  and  the  starry  night, 
"Unto  us  a  Child  is  born;"  and  "  His  name  shall 
be  called  "  Wonderful ! "  W^e,  who  have  listened 
to  this  chorus,  may  form  some  idea  of  the  way  in 
which  a  great  preacher,  like  Williams  of  Wern,  for 
instance,  will  run  his  thought  and  its  corresponding 
expression  up  and  down  through  various  tones  of 
feeling,  and  every  one  awakening  on  some  varying 
accent  a  fresh  interpretation  of  thought  and 
expression. 

We  believe  it  is  the  institution  and  ordinance  of 
preaching  which  keeps  the  religious  instinct  alive 
in  any  land  ;  the  great  revivals  and  awakenings 
of  any  age  have  usually  been  preceded,  as  we  have 
said,  by  the  tongue  of  fire, — the  kindlings  of  soul 


420      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

beneath  the  glow  of  speech.  It  is  so, — we  repeat 
it, — that  our  great  revivals  have  been  kindled  by- 
preaching,  and  the  religious  life  is,  or  ought  to 
be,  very  greatly  sustained  by  preaching,  for  it 
is  the  language  of  reciprocations  ;  but  then  its  fine 
effect  depends  upon  our  not  having  too  much  of 
it, —  short  measure,  but  good  quality. 

We  have  heard,  or  read,  how  an  eagle  was  once 
caught  in  the  ice.  He  rested  there,  on  his  high 
Alpine  crag,  surveying  the  surging  sea  of  mountains 
over  which  his  wing  had  sailed,  the  wild  and  grisly 
cliffs,  far  beyond  the  horn  of  the  hunter,  or  the 
bugle  of  the  forest  bee,  and  there,  amidst  the  regions 
of  perpetual  snow,  the  eagle  began  to  doze.  While 
he  slept,  the  snow  came  down  ;  his  wings  contracted, 
— the  feathers  froze  together;  his  feet,  warm  with 
his  upward  flight,  and  noble  exertion  to  ascend, 
became  fixed,  rigid  ;  they  adhered  to  the  rock  ; 
the  snow  fell  round  the  monarch  of  the  mountains, 
and  still  he  slept  ;  his  wings  congealed, — they  turned 
to  ice.  His  mighty  feet  were  fastened  to  the  ice, 
the  royal  eagle  was  caught  in  the  ice,  and  still 
the  snow  came  down.  He  opened  his  eyes — those 
royal  eyes  which  had  gazed  undazzled  on  the  sun — 
it  was  all  in  vain, — 

**  The  ice  was  here,  the  ice  was  there, 
The  ice  was  all  around." 

And  such  an  eagle  is  the  intellect  separated  from 
the  emotions,  an  eagle  caught  in  the  ice  ;  the 
religious  mind  of  England  in  our  day  is  very  much 
such  an  eagle,  an  eagle  detained  in  the  ice.  The 
teachings  of  Alexander  Bain,  and  Comte,  and 
Herbert  Spencer  have  come  down  upon  the  primal 


THE  PREACHERS  OF  WILD    WALES.      421 

instincts  of  our  nature  like  icy  hail,  and  we  need 
some  sun  to  come  forth  to  scatter  the  snows,  and 
melt  the  ice,  and  to  bid  the  wings  expand  again  in 
their  royalty  of  freedom  and  of  life.  That  which 
would  be  most  likely  to  melt  the  frozen  air,  and  to 
set  the  imprisoned  eagle  free  from  its  ice  chain, 
would  be  a  fine,  free,  wise  speech,  clad  in  the  mighty 
vowel  power  of  soul-convincing  accent. 

To  this  end  Christmas  Evans,  perhaps  the  most 
popular,  and,  on  the  whole,  the  most  mighty  of 
the  great  Welsh  preachers,  described  in  his  own 
allegoric  fashion 

THE    FOUR    METHODS   OF   PREACHING. 

"  We  behold,"  he  said,  "  such  an  one  as  Lazarus, 
lying  in  a  cave,  locked  in  the  sleep  of  death;  now,  how 
shall  he  be  raised  t  how  shall  he  be  brought  back 
to  life  }  Who  will  roll  away  for  us  the  stone  from 
this  sepulchre  ?  First  came  one  who  went  down  to 
the  cave  with  blankets,  and  salt,  to  rub  with  the 
fomentations  of  duty,  to  appeal  to  the  will,  to  say  to 
the  sleeping  man  that  he  could  do  it  if  he  would  ; 
chafing  the  cold  and  inert  limbs,  he  thinks  to  call 
back  the  vital  warmth  ;  and  then  retiring,  and 
standing  some  distance  apart,  he  says  to  the  other 
spectators,  '  Do  you  not  see  him  stir  .?  Are  there  no 
signs  of  life  ?  Is  he  not  moving  ? '  No,  he  lies 
very  still  ;  there  is  no  motion  !  How  could  it  be 
otherwise  1  how  could  a  sense  of  moral  duty  be  felt 
by  the  man  there,  for  the  man  was  dead  ! 

"  The  first  man  gave  up  in  despair.  And  then 
came  the  second.  '  I  thought  you  would  never  do 
it,'  he  said,  '  but,  if  you  look  at  me,  you  will  see 


422      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

a  thing  !  No,'  he  said,  '  your  treatment  has  been 
too  gentle.'  And  he  went  down  into  the  cave 
with  a  scourge.  Said  he,  '  The  man  only  wants 
severe  treatment  to  be  brought  back  to  life  ;  I 
warrant  you  I  will  make  him  feel ! '  And  he  laid 
on,  in  quick  succession,  the  fervid  blows,  the  sharp 
threatenings  of  law,  judgment,  future  danger,  and 
doom  ;  and  then  he  retired  to  some  distance.  *  Is 
he  not  waking  .-* '  he  said.  '  Do  you  not  see  the 
corpse  stir  } '  No  ;  a  corpse  he  was  before  the  man 
began  to  lay  on  his  lashes,  and  a  corpse  he  con- 
tinued still.     For  the  man  was  dead  ! 

*'  *  Ah,'  said  another,  '  you  none  of  you  know 
how  to  do  it,  but  I  have  wonderful  power.  You, 
with  your  rubbing,  and  your  smiting,  what  can  you 
do  1  But  I  have  it,  for  I  can  do  two  things.' 
And  he  advanced,  and  he  fixed  an  electric  battery, 
and  disposed  it  so  that  it  touched  the  dead  man, 
and  then,  from  a  flute  which  he  held,  he  drew  forth 
such  sweet  sounds,  they  charmed  the  ears  which 
were  listening ;  and  whether  it  were  the  battery,  or 
whether  it  were  the  music,  so  it  was  that  effect 
seemed  to  be  produced.  '  Behold,'  said  he,  *  see 
what  the  refinements  of  science,  and  culture,  and 
education  will  do  ! '  And,  indeed,  so  it  was,  for 
the  hair  of  the  dead  man  seemed  to  rise,  and  his 
eyeballs  seemed  to  start  and  dilate ;  and,  see,  he 
rises,  starts  up,  and  takes  a  stride  down  the  cave  ! 
Ah,  but  it  is  all  over  ;  it  was  nothing  but  the 
electricity  in  the  battery :  it  was  not  life ;  and  the 
corpse  sank  back  again  on  the  floor  of  the  cave,  for 
the  man  was  dead ! 

"  And  then,  when  all  were  filled  with  despair,  there 


THE  PREACHERS   OF   WILD    WALES.       423 

came  One  and  stood  by  the  entrance  of  the  cave  ; 
but  He  was  Messenger  of  the  Lord  and  Giver  of 
life,  and,  standing  there,  He  said,  *  Come  from  the 
four  winds,  oh  breath,  and  breathe  on  this  slain  one 
that  he  may  Hve  ! '  and  He  put  His  hands  to  the 
cold  dead  hands,  and  His  lips  to  the  dead  cold  lips, 
and  He  said,  '  Christ  hath  given  thee  life.  Awake, 
thou  that  sleepest  ! '  And  the  man  arose,  and 
shook  off  his  graveclothes ;  what  he  had  needed 
had  come  to  him  now — life  !  Life  is  the  only  cure 
for  death  ;  not  the  prescriptions  of  law,  nor  the 
threats  of  punishment,  and  damnation  ;  not  the  arts 
and  refinements  of  education,  but  life,  spiritual, 
Divine    life,  is  the  only  cure  for  spiritual   death !  " 

We  have  said  we  would  speak  of  some  of  the 
oddities  of  Welsh  pulpit  eloquence,  some  of  them 
very  odd  ;  but  the  most  odd  of  them  had  a  touch  of 
the  sublime,  and  the  most  sublime  of  them  were 
often  odd. 

There  was  Shenkin  of  Penrydd  ;  he  was  a  rough 
rude  farmer,  but  an  ordained  minister  ;  he  has 
left  a  living  reputation  behind  him,  and  he  was 
quite  a  type  of  the  rude,  but  not  the  less  effective, 
Welsh  orator.  Whatever  the  Welsh  preacher  had 
to  say,  however  abstract,  had  to  be  committed  to 
an  illustration,  to  make  it  palpable,  and  plain.  In 
those  early  times  a  very  large  room,  or  barn,  in 
which  were  several  hundreds  of  people,  would 
perhaps  have  only  one  solitary  candle  feebly  glim- 
mering over  the  gloom.  It  was  in  such  circum- 
stances, or  in  such  a  scene,  that  Shenkin  preached 
on  Christ  as  the  Light  of  the  world.  In  the  course 
of  the  sermon  he  came  to  show  that  the  world  was 


424      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

not  its  own  light,  and  announced  to  his  hearers  the 
truth,  which  might  perhaps  startle  some  of  them, 
"  that  light  was  not  in  the  eye."  It  seemed  as  if 
he  had  no  sooner  said  this  than  he  felt  it  to  be  a 
matter  that  required  illustration.  As  he  warmed 
with  his  subject,  going  round  and  round  to  make 
his  meaning  plain,  but  all  the  time  seeming  to  fear 
that  he  was  not  doing  much  towards  it  with  his 
rustic  congregation,  he  suddenly  turned  to  the 
solitary  candle,  and  blew  it  out,  leaving  his  congre- 
gation in  utter  darkness.  "  There,"  he  exclaimed 
triumphantly  to  his  invisible  congregation,  "  what 
do  you  say  to  that  .?  Is  the  light  in  the  eye  .' " 
This,  of  course,  settled  the  matter  in  the  minds  of 
the  most  obtuse  ;  but  it  was  still  a  serious  matter 
to  have  to  relight,  in  the  lonely  little  chapel,  or 
barn,  an  extinguished  candle. 

Wales  was  covered  with  such  men  ;  perhaps  it 
may  be  thought  we  ask  our  cultured  reader  to 
condescend  too  low  in  soliciting  his  notice  of  them  ; 
yet  how  many  of  them  deserve  the  memory  of  those 
tender  lines  of  Samuel  Johnson, — 

"  Their  virtues  walked  their  narrow  round. 
Nor  made  a  pause,  nor  left  a  void; 
And  sure  the  Eternal  Master  found 
Their  single  talent  well  employed. 
And  still  they  fire  affection's  eye, 
Obscurely  wise,  and  coarsely  kind, 
And  let  not  arrogance  deny 
Its  praise  to  merit  unrefined." 

Somewhat  illustrative  of  this  order  of  men  was  an 
instance  which  happened  in  Bristol  near  a  hundred 
years   since ;  a   beloved    old    friend,  who  has   been 


THE  PREACHERS  OF  tVILD    WALES.      425 


twenty  years  in  heaven,  related  the  circumstance  to 
us  ;  he  was  present  in  the  chapel,  and  witnessed  the 
scene.  It  was  a  service  in  which,  as  was  not 
unusual  then,  two  ministers  were  to  preach,  one 
after  the  other.  There  was  at  that  time  a  Welsh 
preacher,  one  Samuel  Breeze,  popularly  called  by  the 
multitudes,  who  delighted  in  his  ministry,  "  Sammy 
Breeze  ; "  he  came  periodically  from  the  mountains 
of  Cardiganshire,  and  spoke  with  tolerable  efficiency 
in  English  ;  he  was  to  preach  on  this  occasion.  The 
other  preacher,  a  young  man  with  some  tints  of 
academical  training,  and  some  of  the  livid  lights  of 
a,  then,  only  incipient  rationalism  on  his  mind, 
took  the  first  place  in  the  pulpit.  He  announced 
his  text,  "  He  that  believeth  shall  be  saved,  and  he 
that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned  ;  "  but  he  con- 
doned the  heavy  condemnation,  and,  in  an  affected 
manner,  shaded  off  the  darkness  of  the  doom  of 
unbelief,  very  much  in  the  style  of  another  preacher, 
who  told  his  hearers  that  he  "  feared  lest  they  should 
be  doomed  to  a  place  which  good  manners  forbade 
his  mentioning."  The  young  man  also  grew  senti- 
mental, and  begged  pardon  of  an  audience  rather 
more  polite  than  usual  for  the  sad  statement  made 
in  the  text.  "  But,  indeed,"  said  he,  "  he  that  be 
lieveth  shall  be  saved,  and  he  that  believeth  not, — 
indeed,  I  regret  to  say, — I  beg  your  pardon  for  utter- 
ing the  terrible  truth — but  indeed  he  shall  be  sen- 
tenced to  a  place  which  here  I  dare  not  mention." 
The  last  words  were  delivered  in  a  whisper.  Then 
up  rose  Sammy  Breeze.  He  began,  "  I  shall  take 
the  same  text  to-night  which  you  have  just  heard. 
Our  young  friend  has  been  fery  foine  to-night  ;  he 


426       THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

has  told  you  some  fery  polite  things,  I  am  not  fery 
foine,  and  I  am  not  polite  ;  but  I  will  preach  a  little 
bit  of  Gospel  to  you,  which  is  this — '  He  that 
pelieveth  shall  be  saved,  and  he  that  pelieveth  not 
shall  be  tamned,'  and  I  begs  no  pardons^  He  con- 
tinued, "  I  do  look  round  on  this  chapel,  and  I  do 
see  all  fery  learned  and  intellectual.  You  do  read 
books,  and  you  do  study  studies  ;  and  fery  likely  you 
do  think  that  you  can  mend  God's  Book,  and  are 
fery  sure  you  can  mend  me.  You  have  great — what 
you  call  thoughts,  and  poetries.  But  I  will  tell  you 
one  little  word,  and  you  must  not  try  to  mend  that  ; 
but  if  you  do,  it  will  be  all  the  same.  It  is  this, 
look  you — '  He  that  pelieveth  shall  be  saved,  and 
he  that  pelieveth  not  shall  be  tamned,'  and  I  begs 
no  pardons.  And  then  I  do  look  round  your  chapel, 
and  I  do  see  you  are  foine  people,  well-dressed 
people,  well-to-do  people.  You  are  not  only  pious, 
but  you  have  fery  foine  hymn-books  and  cushions, 
and  some  red  curtains,  for  I  do  see  you  are  fery 
rich,  and  you  have  got  your  moneys,  and  are  getting 
fery  proud.  But  I  will  tell  you  it  does  not  matter 
at  all,  and  I  do  not  mind  it  at  all — not  one  little  bit 
— for  I  must  tell  you  the  truth,  and  the  truth  is — 
'  He  that  pelieveth  shall  be  saved,  and  he  that 
pelieveth  not  shall  be  tamned,'  and  I  begs  no 
pardons.  And  now,"  continued  the  preacher,  "  you 
will  say  to  me,  '  What  do  you  mean  by  talking 
to  us  in  this  way }  who  are  you,  sir  ? '  And  now 
will  tell  you  I  am  Sammy  Freeze.  I  have  come 
from  the  mountains  of  Cardiganshire  on  my  Master's 
pusiness,  and  His  message  I  must  deliver.  If  you 
will  never  hear  me  again,  I  shall  not  matter  much  ; 


THE  PREACHERS  OF  WILD    WALES.       427 

but  while  you  shall  hear  me,  you  shall  hear  me,  and 
this  is  His  word  to  me,  and  in  me  to  you — *  He 
that  pelieveth  shall  be  saved,  and  he  that  pelieveth 
not  shall  be  tamned,'  a7id  I  begs  no  pardofis!'  But 
the  scene  in  the  pulpit  was  a  trifle  to  the  scene  in 
the  vestry.  There  the  deacons  were  in  a  state  of 
great  anger  with  the  blunt  teacher  ;  and  pne,  the 
relative — we  believe  the  ancestor — of  a  well-known 
religious  man  in  Bristol,  exclaimed,  "  Mr.  Breeze, 
you  have  strangely  forgotten  yourself  to-night,  sir. 
We  did  not  expect  that  you  would  have  behaved  in 
this  way.  We  have  always  been  very  glad  to  see 
you  in  our  pulpit  ;  but  your  sermon  to-night,  sir, 
has  been  most  insolent,  shameful !  "  He  wound  up 
a  pretty  smart  condemnation  by  saying,  "  In  short, 
/  don't  understand  you  !  " 

"  Ho  !  ho  !  "  said  Sammy.  "What !  you  say  you 
don't  understand  me  ?  Eh  !  look  you,  then  ;  I  will 
tell  you  I  do  understand  you  I  Up  in  our  moun- 
tains, we  have  one  man  there :  we  do  call  him  Excise- 
man ;  he  comes  along  to  our  shops  and  stores,  and 
says,  '  What  have  you  here  ?  Anything  contraband 
here  ? '  And  if  it  is  all  right,  the  good  man  says, '  Step 
in,  Mr.  Exciseman  ;  come  in,  look  you.'  He  is  all 
fair,  open,  and  above-board.  But  if  he  has  any- 
thing secreted  there,  he  does  draw  back  surprised, 
and  he  makes  a  foine  face,  and  says,  '  Sir,  I  do  not 
understand  you.'  Now,  you  do  tell  me  that  you 
don't  understand  me,  but  I  do  understand  you, 
gentlemen,  I  do  ;  and  I  will  say  good-night  to  you  ; 
but  I  must  tell  you  one  little  word  ;  that  is,  *  He  that 
pelieveth  shall  be  saved,  and  he  that  pelieveth  not 
shall  be  tamned,'  ayid  I  begs  no  pardons  !  " 


428      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

But  we  shall  not  hesitate  to  say  that  these 
preachers  dealt  with  great  truths.  A  mind  which 
lives  in  the  light  will  by  its  own  sincerity  make  the 
subject  clear  which  it  attempts  to  expound  ;  some  of 
these  preachers,  and  Christmas  Evans  especially,  on 
whose  name  we  shall  dwell  at  length  presently,  had 
the  faculty  eminently  of  making  abstruse,  or  abstract 
truths  shine  out  with  luminous  and  distinct  beauty. 

This  is  most  noble  when  the  mind  of  a  preacher 
rises  to  the  highest  truths  in  the  Christian  scheme. 
A  great  deal  of  our  preaching  in  the  present  day 
well  deserves  the  name  of  pretty  ;  but  how  many 
men,  whose  volumes  of  sermons  are  upon  our 
shelves,  both  in  England  and  America,  seem  as  if 
they  had  been  students  in  the  natural  history  of 
religion,  gathering  shells, — pretty  rose-tinted  shells, — 
or  leaves,  or  insects  for  a  theological  museum.  And 
a  very  pretty  occupation,  too,  to  call  attention  to  the 
lily-work  of  the  temple,  or  the  bells  and  pome- 
granates on  the  vesture  of  the  priest.  But  there  are 
others  whose  aim  has  rather  been 

"  To  see  great  truths 
That  touch  and  handle  little  ones." 

Such  men  are  of  that  order  who  occupy  the  mind 
and  single  eye  rather  on  the  pathway  of  a  planet 
beyond  them  than  in  the  study  of  the  most  exquisite 
shell  on  the  sea-shore.  Among  religious  students, 
and  even  among  eminent  preachers,  there  are  some 
who  may  be  spoken  of  as  Divine  and  spiritual  as- 
tronomers ;  they  study  the  laws  of  the  celestial  lights  ; 
they  are  concerned  in  the  spiritual  order  of  the 
universe,  and  in  the  conditions  of  spiritual  order  ; — 


THE  PREACHERS  OF  WILD    WALES.      429 

and  there  are  others  who  may  be  called  religious 
entomologists,  and  they  find  themselves  at  home 
amidst  insectile  prettinesscs ;  more  interesting  to 
them,  by  far,  a  beetle  or  a  butterfly,  a  univalve,  bivalve, 
or  multivalve,  than  the  mysterious  belts  of  Jupiter, 
or  the  gorgeous  rings  of  Saturn  ;  and  Christ  and  the 
soul  are  trifling  matters  compared  with  some  little 
question  uninteresting  alike  to  God  and  men. 

Now  the  power  of  great  truths  overwhelms  the 
man  who  feels  them,  and  this  gives  rise  to  that 
impassioned  earnestness  which  enables  a  preacher  to 
storm,  and  to  take  possession  of  the  hearts  of  his 
hearers.  The  man,  as  it  has  been  truly  said,  was 
lost  in  his  art  and  his  theme, — was  swallowed  up  in 
excited  feeling,  like  a  whirlpool  bearing  along  the 
speaker,  and  his  hearers  with  him,  on  the  current  of 
the  strong  discourse.  The  histories  of  the  greatest 
orators — for  instance,  Massillon,  Bossuet,  Robert 
Hall,  and  the  great  Welsh  preachers — show  this  ;  the 
excited  feelings  of  the  audience  manifested  themselves 
by  their  starting  from  their  seats,  and  sometimes 
by  loud  expressions  of  acclamation  and  approbation. 
But,  in  order  to  this,  a  preacher  must  be  at  once 
self-abandoned  and  self-possessed.  The  worth  and 
the  value  of  all  great  preaching  must  depend  upon 
the  measure  to  which  it  represents  the  preacher's  own 
familiarity  with  the  truths  he  touches  and  proclaims; 
this  is  the  preaching  which  "  searches  Jerusalem 
with  candles." 

Preachers  live  too  much  now  in  the  presence  of 
published  sermons  to  be  in  the  highest  degree 
effective.  He  who  thinks  of  the  printing  press 
cannot  abandon  himself ;  he  who  uses  notes  slavishly 


430      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

cannot  abandon  himself ;  and  without  abandonment, 
— that  is,  self-forgetfulness, — what  is  oratory?  what 
is  action  ?  what  is  passion  ?  If  we  were  asked, 
What  are  the  two  greatest  human  aids  to  pulpit 
power  ?  we  should  say,  Self-possession  and  self- 
abandonment  ;  the  two  are  perfectly  compatible, 
and,  in  the  pulpit,  the  one  is  never  powerful  without 
the  other.  Knowledge,  belief,  preparation,  these  give 
self-possession  ;  and  earnestness  and  unconsciousness, 
these  give  self-abandonment  ;  the  first,  without  the 
last,  may  make  a  preacher  like  a  stony  pillar  covered 
with  runes  and  hieroglyphics,  and  the  last,  without 
the  first,  may  make  a  mere  fanatic,  with  a  torrent 
of  speech  plunging  lawlessly  and  disgracefully  abroad. 
We  suppose  there  never  was  a  time  when  ministers 
were  more  afraid  of  their  audiences  than  in  this  day, 
— afraid  of  the  big  man  with  his  wealth  ;  afraid  of 
the  highly  cultured  young  man  with  the  speculative 
eye-glasses,  who  has  finished  his  education  in 
Germany  ;  afraid  lest  there  should  be  the  slightest 
departure  from  the  most  perfect  and  elegant  taste  ; 
and  so,  in  this  highly  finished,  furnished,  and  culti- 
vated time,  we  have  few  preachers  who  in  the  pulpit 
can  either  possess  their  souls,  or  abandon  them  to 
the  truth  in  the  text  they  have  to  announce. 

Preachers  and  preaching  !  we  are  no  preacher  ; 
we  cannot  do  it,  although  we  have  been  making  a 
kind  of  vain  attempt  at  it  all  our  life.  But  we 
believe  in  preachers  and  in  preaching,  and  these 
Welsh  preachers  were  very  wonderful.  There  was 
Rowlands  of  Llangeitho  ;  he  had  the  power  of  the 
thunder  and  the  dew.  There  was  Williams  of  Wirn, 
the    master  of  Divine    analogy ;    his    mind    was    a 


THE  PREACHERS   OF  WILD    WALES.      431 

camera  obscura,  and  as  he  preached  he  invited  his 
hearers  to  see  the  procession  of  sacred  representa- 
tions of  spiritual  things  ;  so  luminous  were  his 
pictures,  so  incisive  his  words,  so  Divine  and  so 
devout  his  utterances  ! 

But  John  Elias  !  heard  our  readers  ever  of  John 
Elias  ?  The  stories  told  of  what  John  Elias  did  when 
he  assayed  to  preach  read  almost  like  miracles  ;  his 
preaching  was  no  rippling  out  of  mild,  meditative, 
"  innocent  young  sermons ; "  it  was  no  recreative 
play.  John  Elias,  of  Wales,  was  really  a  kind  of 
Elijah  the  prophet,  or  John  the  Baptist  ;  his  preach- 
ing effected  social  regenerations  in  neighbourhoods  ; 
he  put  down  fairs,  and  race-courses.  There  was 
one  great  race  especially  coming  off,  a  great  disturb- 
ance and  curse  to  the  whole  neighbourhood  ;  Elias 
prayed  passionately  and  earnestly  that  the  Lord 
would  do  something  to  stop  it,  and  his  prayer  was 
so  remarkable  that  some  one  said,  "  Elijah  is  pray- 
ing,— Ahab  must  prepare  his  chariot,  and  get  away." 
And  it  was  so  ;  just  before  the  time,  the  sky  began 
to  darken  ;  the  lamps  were  lighted  in  the  shops  ;  the 
rain  descended  in  torrents,  and  continued  without 
intermission  for  two  days  ;  the  crowds  dispersed,  and 
they  did  not  reassemble  that  year,  nor  the  next. 
The  eminence  of  this  preacher  was  so  great,  so 
astonishing,  that  wherever  he  went,  whatever  hour  of 
the  day,  or  time,  or  season,  business  was  laid  aside, 
shops  were  closed,  and  the  mighty  crowds  followed 
him  to  hear  him.  But  we  cannot  give  our  readers 
his  sermons  ;  only  shall  we  say  that  it  has  been  said 
of  him,  "  Behold,  I  will  make  thee  a  new  sharp 
threshing  instrument  having  teeth  :  thou  shalt  thresh 


432      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

the  mountains,  and  beat  them  small,  and  make  the 
hills  like  chaff." 

We  have  broken  away  so  hurriedly  from  Elias 
and  the  other  preachers  of  wild  Wales  because  we 
would  devote  the  remainder  of  this  chapter  to  the 
wonderful  "  one-eyed  man  of  Anglesea,"  Christmas 
Evans.  He  exercised  his  ministry  for  half  a  century, 
and  retained,  through  all  the  time,  freshness  and 
variety  of  feeling  and  imagination  ;  his  wing  never 
seemed  little,  or  petty  in  its  flight.  There  was  the 
firmness  and  strength  of  the  beat  of  a  noble  eagle. 
Some  eloquence  sings,  some  sounds  ;  in  the  one  we 
hear  the  voice  as  of  a  bird  hovering  in  the  air, — 
in  the  other  we  listen  to  the  thunder  of  the  plume  ; 
in  Christmas  Evans  it  was  as  the  thunder  of  the 
plume.  His  words  and  thoughts  became  radiant 
with  fire  and  metaphor  ;  they  flew  forth,  rich,  bright, 
glowing  like  some  rich  metal  in  ethereal  flames.  It 
was  the  nature  and  habit  of  his  mind  to  embody 
and  impersonate  ;  attributes  and  qualities  took  the 
shape  and  form  of  persons  ;  he  seemed  to  enter 
mystic  abodes,  and  not  to  talk  of  things  as  a 
metaphysician,  or  a  theologian,  but  as  a  spectator 
or  actor.  The  magnificences  of  nature  crowded 
round  him,  bowing  in  homage  as  he  plucked  from 
them,  to  adorn  or  to  illustrate  his  theme,  all  things 
beautiful  or  splendid,  all  things  fresh  and  young, 
all  things  old  and  venerable.  He  gave  it  as  his 
advice  to  a  young  preacher,  "  Never  raise  the  voice 
while  the  heart  is  dry ;  let  the  heart  and  the 
affections  shout  first ;  let  it  commence  within!'  A 
man  who  could  say,  "  Hundreds  of  prayers  bubble 
from   the  fountain  of  m)''  mind,"  such  a  man    was 


THE  PREACHERS  OF  WHD    WALES.      433 

rich  in  all  the  manifoldness  of  genius  ;  what  sort  of 
preacher  was  he  likely  to  make  ?  "  He  mused,  and 
the  fire  burned ;"  like  the  smith  who  blows  upon  the 
furnace  until  the  iron  is  red-hot,  and  then  strikes 
on  the  anvil  until  the  sparks  fly  all  round  him,  so 
he  preached.  Then  he  had  an  astonishing  power 
of  parable.  He  is,  before  any  one  else,  the  Bunyan 
of  the  modern  pulpit  ;  he  preached  among  people 
to  whom  it  was  necessary  to  speak  in  pictures  ; 
sometimes  he  spread  a  large  canvas,  like  Paul 
Veronese,  sometimes  a  small,  but  most  distinct 
and  homely  piece,  a  very  Teniers,  or  Wilkie,  or 
Tideman  ;  of  the  latter  order  we  find  innumerable 
exquisitely  pretty  sayings,  as  when  he  says,  "  The 
crocodile  of  death  shall  be  harnessed  to  the  chariot 
of  the  daughter  of  Zion  to  bring  her  home  to  her 
Father's  house."  That  is  very  pretty  when,  preaching 
on  Ruth,  he  says,  "  Faith  is  the  wedding  ring  by 
which  the  daughter  of  the  old  Ammonite  is  married 
to  the  Prince  of  peace  ;  she  is  raised  from  poverty 
to  opulence,  from  degradation  to  honour,  not 
because  of  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  ring,  though 
it  is  a  golden  one,  but  on  account  of  the  union 
which  it  •  signifies  between  her  and  the  beloved 
Prince."  Such  things  as  these  are  strewn  along  all 
his  sermons,  only  in  all  he  was  pre-eminently  an  orator. 
He  stood  six  feet  high,  and  his  whole  bearing 
was  grand  and  dignified.  He  had  but  one  eye, 
it  is  true, — like  Spiridion,  he  lost  it  in  the  cause 
of  his  Saviour, — but  that  one  eye  was  singularly 
penetrating,  burning  with  wonderful  power.  Some- 
body, who  had  never  heard  him,  said  to  Robert  Hall, 
"  Why,  sir,  he  has  only  one  eye."      "  Ah,"  said  Hall, 

38 


434      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

"  but  that's  a  piercer  !  Only  one  eye,  sir  ?  Why, 
sir,  it's  an  eye  to  light  an  army  through  a  wilderness 
in  a  dark  night !  " 

He  often  had  an  odd  way  of  dealing  with  -his 
texts, — with  Paul,  for  instance,  or  Saul  of  Tarsus,  and 
his  seven  ships.  It  was  a  sermon  preached  to 
sailors.  He  described  Saul  as  once  a  very  thriving 
merchant,  and  extensive  ship-owner.  He  had  seven 
vessels  of  his  own,  the  names  of  which  were, — 
I.  Circumcised  the  Eighth  Day  ;  H.  Of  the  Stock  of 
Israel;  III.  Of  the  Tribe  of  Benjamin;  IV.  A  Hebr^ 
of  the  Hebrews ;  V,  As  touching  the  Law,  a  Pharisee ; 
VI,  As  Concerning  Zeal  ;  VII.  Persecuting  the 
Church  :  the  seventh  was  a  man-of-war,  a  mighty 
privateer,  with  which  he  one  day  set  out,  well 
supplied  with  ammunition,  from  the  port  of  Jeru- 
salem, from  the  arsenal  of  the  high-priest,  with  a 
view  to  destroy  a  small  port  at  Damascus.  He  was 
wonderfully  confident,  and  breathed  out  threatenings 
and  slaughters  ;  but  he  had  not  got  far  before  the 
Gospel  ship,  with  Jesus  Christ  Himself  as  Commander 
on  board,  hove  in  sight,  and  threw  such  a  shell 
among  the  merchant's  fleet  that  all  his  ships  were 
instantly  on  fire.  The  commotion  was  tremendous, 
and  there  was  such  a  volume  of  smoke  that  Paul 
could  not  see  the  sun  at  noon.  While  the  ships 
were  fast  sinking,  the  Gospel  Commander  gave 
orders  that  the  perishing  merchant  should  be  taken 
on  board.  "  Saul,  Saul,  what  has  become  of  all 
thy  ships  .?  "  "  They  are  all  on  fire."  "  What  wilt 
thou  do  now  } "  "  Oh,  that  I  may  be  found  in 
Him,  not  having  on  my  own  righteousness,  which 
is  of  the   law,   but   that   which  is  through  faith  in 


THE  PREACHERS   OF   WILD    WALES.      435 

Christ,  the  righteousness  which  is  of  God  by 
faith." 

One  of  the  grandest  of  what  we  may  call  his 
dramatic  sermons  is  the  trial  of  the  witnesses  of 
our  Lord's  resurrection  ;  one  who  heard  it ,  says, 
"  While  I  have  the  faintest  trace  of  memory  as  to 
sermons  I  have  heard,  this  must  always  be  pre- 
eminent and  distinct  ;  in  its  oratorical  eminence  it 
stands  alone  even  among  his  great  achievements," 
The  guard  of  soldiers  who  had  seen  the  Saviour 
rise  were  on  their  examination  before  the  Sanhedrim, 
the  chief  priests.  He  heard  them  talk,  had  a  clear 
perception  of  the  difference  of  the  tone,  and  more 
especially  when  the  high-priest  said  in  an  anxious 
agonising  whisper,  "Shut  the  door;"  and  then,  "You, 
tall  soldier,  approach  ;  was  it  not  you  who  pierced 
His  side  > "  "  Ah,  yes,  it  was  I."  "  When  Christmas 
Evans  simulated  the  high-priest,  and  singled  out  the 
tall  soldier,  and  the  conversation  went  on  between 
the  two,  such  a  combined  triumph,"  says  his  great 
reporter,  "  of  sanctified  fancy  and  sacred  oratory  I 
never  expect  to  witness  again." 

All  such  lives  have  their  grand  compensations — 
compensations  which  cannot  be  estimated  by  ordinary 
men.  Conceive  such  an  occasion,  when  "  the  one- 
eyed  man  of  Anglesea  "  had  been  for  many  years 
at  the  height  of  his  power.  This  will  be  one  of 
his  great  occasions,  and  he  has  been  expected  here 
for  many  weeks ;  no  expectation  hanging  on  the 
appearance  of  Christine  Nilsson,  or  Jenny  Lind,  or 
Sims  Reeves  on  some  great  musical  festivity,  can 
reach,  in  our  imagination,  the  expectations  of  these 
poor  scattered  villagers  as  they  think  of  the  delight 


436      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

they  will  experience  in  listening  to  their  wonderful 
and  well-loved  prophet. 

So  all  along  the  roads  they  press,  an  untiring 
crowd,  showing  that  something  unusual  is  going  on 
somewhere.  The  roads  are  picturesque,  and  lively 
with  all  sorts  of  people,  on  foot,  on  horseback,  in  old 
farm  carts,  and  even  in  carriages,  all  wending  their 
way  to  the  largest,  and  most  central  chapel  of  the 
neighbourhood.  It  is  the  chief  service  ;  the  congre- 
gation is  wedged  together  in  the  spacious  house  of 
God  ;  it  becomes  almost  insupportable,  but  the 
Welsh  like  it.  The  service  has  not  commenced,  and 
a  cry  has  already  been  raised  that  it  had  better  be 
held  in  an  adjoining  field ;  this  would  be  inconvenient. 
The  doors,  the  windows  are  all  thrown  open  ;  and 
so  the  time  goes  on,  and  the  hour  for  commencing 
the  service  arrives,  the  eyes  are  strained,  the  door 
opens  beneath  the  pulpit,  and  the  minister  of  the 
congregation  comes  in,  and  makes  his  way  for  himself 
and  his  friend,  the  great  preacher.  Amidst  the 
hundred  ministers  following,  there  is  he,  that  tall 
commanding  figure;  that  is  he,  "the  one-eyed 
man  of  Anglesea."  Then  there  are  murmurs  of  joy, 
gruntings,  and  whispers  of  glad  congratulation,  which 
seem  to  want  to  burst  into  acclamations,  which  pass 
over  the  multitude.  There  is,  of  course.  .  prayer, 
singing,  and  reading,  and  a  short  sermon,  a  very 
short  sermon.  There  are  crowds  of  preachers  beneath 
the  pulpit,  but  they  have  all  come  to  hear  the  mighty 
minstrel  ;  and  the  moment  is  here.  A  few  more 
verses  of  a  hymn,  during  which  there  is  no  little 
commotion,  in  order  that  there  may  be  none  by-and- 
bye,  those  who  have  been  long  standing  changing 


THE  PREACHERS  OF  WILD    WALES.      437 

places  with  those  who  have  been  sitting  ;  and  there 
he  is  up  before  the  people,  and,  in  some  such  circum- 
stances, he  seems  to  have  first  sung  that  wonderful 
song  or  sermon — 

SATAN    IN    DRY    PLACES. 

The  preacher  appears  to  have  been  desirous  of 
teaching  the  beautiful  truth  that  a  mind  preoccupied 
and  inhabited  by  Divine  thoughts  cannot  entertain 
an  evil  visitor,  but  compels  him  to  betake  himself 
to  flight  by  the  strong  expulsive  power  of  Divine 
affections.  He  commenced  by  describing  Satan 
as  a  vast  and  wicked,  although  invisible  spirit, 
somehow  as  Milton  might  have  described  him  ;  and 
the  preacher  was  not  unacquainted  with  the  grand 
imagery  of  the  Paradise  Lost,  in  which  the  poet 
describes  the   Evil  One. 

"  Who  shall  tempt  with  wandering  feet 
The  dark,  unbottomed,  infinite  abyss, 
And  through  the  palpable  obscure  find  out 
His  uncouth  way  ?  " 

So  Christmas  described  him  as  spreading  his  airy 
flight  on  indefatigable  wings,  determined  to  insinuate 
himself,  through  the  avenues  of  sense,  to  some  poor 
soul,  and  turn  it  to  destruction.  And,  with  this  end, 
flying  through  the  air,  and  seeking  for  a  dwelling 
place,  he  found  himself  moving  over  one  of  those 
wide  Welsh  moors,  which  the  preacher  so  well  knew, 
and  had  so  often  travelled  ;  and  his  fiery,  although 
invisible,  glance  espied  a  young  lad,  in  the  bloom  of 
his  days,  and  the  strength  of  his  power,  sitting  on 
the  box  of  his  cart,  driving,  on  his  way  to  the 
quarries,  for  slate  or  lime. 


438      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

"  'There  he  is,'  said  Satan  ;  'his  veins  are  full  of  blood, — 
his  bones  are  full  of  marrow ;  T  will  cast  my  sparks  into  his 
bosom,  and  set  all  his  passions  on  fire.  I  will  lead  him  on, 
and  he  shall  rob  his  master,  and  lose  his  place,  and  find 
another,  and  rob  again,  and  do  worse,  and  he  shall  go  on 
from  worse  to  worse,  and  then  his  soul  shall  sink,  never  to 
rise  again,  into  the  pit  of  fire  ! ' 

"  But  just  then,  as  he  was  about  to  dart  a  fiery  temptation 
into  the  heart  of  the  youth,  the  boy  gave  a  flank  with  his 
whip,  and  the  dismayed  Evil  One  heard  him  sing  out, 

•' '  My  God,  the  spring  of  all  my  joys, 
The  life  of  my  delights, 
The  glory  of  my  brightest  days. 
And  comfort  of  my  nights.' 

"  *  Oh,  but  this  is  a  dry  place,'  said  the  Evil  One,  and  the 
fiery  Dragon  fled  away. 

"  But  I  saw  him  pass  on,"  said  the  preacher,  "  hovering 
like  a  vulture  or  a  hawk  in  the  air,  and  casting  about  for  a 
place  where  he  might  nestle  his  black  wings,  when,  at  the 
edge  of  the  moor,  he  came  to  a  lovely  valley ;  the  hills  rose 
round  it ;  it  was  a  beautiful,  still,  meadow-like  spot,  watered 
by  a  lovely  stream,  and  there,  beneath  the  eaves  of  a  little 
cottage,  he  saw  a  girl  of  some  eighteen  years  of  age,  a  flower 
among  the  flowers ;  she  was  knitting,  or  sewing,  at  the  cottage 
door  ;  said  Satan,  '  She  will  do  for  me ;  I  will  whisper  the 
evil  thought  into  her  heart,  and  she  shall  turn  it  over  and 
over,  again  and  again,  until  she  learns  to  love  it ;  and  then 
the  evil  thought  shall  be  an  evil  deed  ;  and  then  she  shall 
be  obliged  to  leave  her  village,  and  to  go  to  the  great  town, 
and  she  shall  live  a  life  of  evil,  all  astray  from  the  paths  of 
my  Almighty  Enemy.  Oh,  I  will  make  her  mine !  and 
then,  by-and-bye,  I  will  cast  her  over  the  precipice,  and  she 
shall  sink  into  the  furnace  of  the  Divine  wrath  ! '  And  so 
he  hastened  to  approach  and  to  dart  into  the  mind  of  the 
maiden  ;  but,  while  he  was  approaching,  all  the  hills  and 


THE  PREACHERS  OF  WILD    WALES.      439 

crags  seemed  to  break  out  into  singing,  as  her  sweet  voice 
rose  high  and  clear  chanting  out  the  words, 

"  '  My  God,  I  am  Thine  ; 

What  a  rapture  Divine  ! 
What  a  blessing  to  know  that  my  Saviour  is  mine  ! 

In  the  Heavenly  Lamb 

Thrice  happy  I  am, 
And  my  soul,  it  doth  dance  at  the  sound  of  His  name.' 

" '  Ah,  this  is  a  dry  place  too,'  said  the  Dragon  as  he  fled 
away. 

"  And  so  he  passed  from  the  valley  among  the  hills,  but 
with  hot  rage.  *  I  will  have  a  place  to  dwell  in,'  he  said  ; 
'  I  will  somehow  leap  over  the  fences  and  hedges  of  the 
purpose  and  covenant  and  grace  of  God.  I  do  not  seem  to 
have  succeeded  with  the  young  to-day;  I  will  try  the  old  ;  and 
all  in  good  time  for  me,'  he  thought,  for,  passing  down  the 
village  street,  he  saw  an  old  woman  ;  she,  too,  was  sitting  at 
the  door  of  her  cot,  and  spinning  there  on  her  wheel.  *  Ah,' 
said  Satan,  '  it  will  be  good  to  lay  hold  of  her  grey  hairs, 
and  make  her  to  taste  of  the  lake  that  burneth  with  fire  and 
brimstone.'  And  he  descended  on  the  eaves  of  the  cot ; 
but,  as  he  approached  near,  he  heard  the  trembling  quaver- 
ing voice  of  the  old  woman,  murmuring  to  herself  lowlily, 
'  For  the  mountains  shall  depart,  and  the  hills  be  removed, 
but  My  kindness  shall  not  depart  from  thee,  neither  shall 
the  covenant  of  My  mercy  be  removed,  saith  the  Lord  that 
hath  mercy  on  thee.'  And  the  words  hurt  the  Evil  One,  as 
well  as  disappointed  him  ;  they  wounded  him  as  he  fled 
away  screaming,  '  Another  dry  place  I ' 

"Ah,  poor  Devil!"  exclaimed  the  preacher,  "and  he 
usually  so  very  successful;  but  he  was  quite  unsuccessful 
that  day  !  And  now  it  was  night,  and  he  was  scudding 
about  like  a  bird  upon  his  black  wings,  and  pouring  forth 
his  screams  of  rage.  But  he  passed  through  another  Welsh 
village,  the  white  cottages  gleaming  out  in  the  pure  moon- 


440      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

light  on  the  sloping  hillside.  And  there  was  a  cottage,  and 
in  the  upper  room  was  a  faint  light  trembling,  and  *  Oh  ! ' 
said  the  Devil  to  himself,  '  Devil,  thou  hast  been  a  very 
foolish  devil  to-day  !  and  there,  in  that  room  where  the 
lamp-light  is,  old  Williams  is  slowly,  surely  wasting  away. 
Over  eighty,  or  I  am  mistaken ;  not  much  mind  left,  and 
he  has  borne  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day,  as  they  call 
it.  Thanks  to  me,  he  has  had  a  hard  time  of  it ;  very  few 
mercies  to  be  thankful  for ;  he  has  not  found  serving  God,  I 
think,  a  very  profitable  business.  Come,  cheer  up.  Devil ! 
it  will  be  a  grand  thing  if  thou  canst  get  him  to  doubt  a 
bit,  and  then  to  despair  a  bit,  and  then  to  curse  God,  and 
die  !  that  will  make  up  for  this  day's  losses.' 

"  Then  he  enters  the  room  ;  there  was  the  old  man  lying 
on  the  poor  bed,  and  his  long,  thin,  wasted  hands  and  fingers 
lying  on  the  coverlid,  his  eyes  closed,  the  long  silvery  hair 
falling  over  the  pillow.  Now,  Satan,  make  haste  !  the  hour 
is  coming ;  there  is  even  a  stir  in  every  room  in  the  house  ; 
they  seem  to  know  that  the  old  man  is  passing.  But,  as 
Satan  himself  moved  before  the  bed  to  dart  into  the  mind 
of  the  old  man,  the  patriarch  rose,  stretched  forth  his  hands, 
and  pinned  his  enemy  to  the  wall,  as  he  exclaimed,  'Though 
I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  I  will 
fear  no  evil,  for  Thou  art  with  me :  Thy  rod  and  Thy 
staff,  they  comfort  me ;  Thou  preparest  a  table  before  me  in 
the  presence  of  mine  enemy  ;  .Thou  anointest  my  head  with 
oil — cup  runneth  over — goodness  and  mercy  all  the  days 
of  my  life — house  of  the  Lord  for  ever ! ' 

"  Oh,  that  was  a  fearfully  dry  place!  the  old  man  sank 
back  ;  it  was  all  over ;  and  those  words  beat  Satan  down  to 
the  bottom  of  his  own  bottomless  pit,  for  that  was  a  very 
dry  place  1 " 

Such  was  the  preaching  of  Christmas  Evans. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

THE  PLACE  OF  THE  PULPIT  IN  POETRY  AND 
FICTION. 

FICTION !  what  then  has  fiction  to  do  with 
the  pulpit  ?  Let  us  inquire  ;  and,  first,  this 
is,  beyond  any  other  age  of  the  world,  the  age  of 
fiction, — fiction  of  every  order, — some  of  it,  no 
doubt,  worthy  of  every  reprobation  ;  but  this  is 
also  most  remarkable,  that  the  very  noblest  streams 
of  literature  have  turned  into  the  channels  of  fiction  ; 
history,  metaphysics,  the  problems  of  faith,  the 
problems  of  society,  the  purest  of  poetry,  the  most 
soothing  influences  for  the  study  and  the  fireside, 
all  these  are  to  be  sought  for,  and  found,  in  modern 
fiction.  It  seems  from  the  number  of  novels  which 
teem  from  the  press,  and  from  the  same  pen,  this 
must  be  the  order  of  writing  most  easily  written, 
and  most  remunerative  ; — the  most  in  demand,  and 
the  best  paid  ;  it  is  not  wonderful,  it  is  an  instru- 
ment so  truly  human,  and  in  all  ages  it  has  been 
the  vehicle  of  pleasure  and  instruction,  but  never 
so  much  so  as  in  this  age.  All  preachers  will  do 
well  to  consider  this,  and  to  take  it  into  account 
in  their  studies  for  the  pulpit ;  and  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  the  greater  amount  of  that  mental 
force,  which  in  other  ages  was  found  in  the  pulpit, 


442      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

has  discovered  a  more  useful,  more  independent,  and 
far  more  lucrative  employment  in  the  profession 
of  the  pen,  and,  perhaps,  even  of  the  pen  of 
fiction. 

But  the  pulpit  itself, — it  also  has  been  introduced 
by  its  various  representative  preachers  into  the 
pages  of  fiction.  We  could  fill  a  volume  with  the 
varieties  of  preacher  and  sermon  life  as  delineated 
by  our  great  novelists.  Oh,  these  great  novelists 
knew  how  to  preach,  and  very  many  of  their 
characters  give  to  us  perfect  studies  in  homiletics  ; 
the  late  Lord  Lytton,  for  instance,  in  his  noble 
young  curate  in  "  What  will  he  do  with  it  ? "  and, 
more  especially,  in  that  model  of  a  sermon  by 
Parson  Dale,  in  the  first  volume  of  "  My  Novel," 
on  the  text  "  Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens." 

In  a  very  remarkable  novel,  the  first  of  the 
Cheveley  Novels,  "  The  Modern  Minister,"  a  work 
which  has  won  golden  ore  of  criticism  from  every 
order  of  reviewer,  there  is  an  astonishing  sermon, 
which  was  preached  to  an  astonished  congregation 
by  the  minister,  who  was  suffering  beneath  a  cloud  of 
calumny,  and  which  is  made  up  entirely  of  choicely 
chosen  texts  of  Scripture,  without  any  commentary  ; 
and  it  is  quite  instructive  to  see  and  to  feel  how 
every  text  pierced  home. 

And  we  remember  few  things  more  powerful,  as 
illustrating  the  force  of  a  general  truth  brought  home, 
quite  unconsciously,  to  the  individual  conscience,  than 
Mrs.  Riddell's  sermon  in  her  novel,  "  The  Mystery  of 
Palace  Gardens,"  from  the  text  "Thou  art  the  man;" 
it  is  a  study  in  the  art  of  useful  sermon-making 
the  preacher  knew  when  to  stop  ;  there  was  nothing 


THE  PULPIT  IN  POETRY  AND  FICTION.    443 

to  weaken  the  force  of  a  mighty  sermon  ;  he  had 
roused  many  consciences,  but  he  had  pierced  one 
as  with  a  lance  of  fire  ;  in  a  large  and  fashionable 
congregation,  rustling  in  silks,  and  blazing  with 
jewels,  the  word  had  found  out  the  conscience 
to  which  it  had  distinctly  and  authoritatively  said, 
altogether  unknown  to  the  preacher,  "  Thou  art 
the  man." 

Then  what  a  picture  is  that  drawn  by  Victor 
Hugo  in  his  story  of  the  cardinal  bishop !  what 
a  study  !  And,  indeed,  an  instructor  of  men  ought 
to  know  how  to  use  the  whole  of  that  immense 
mountain  of  intellectual  ore  to  purpose ! 

What  a  picture  of  the  preacher,  to  the  roughest 
order  of  mind,  in  Schiller's  "  Wallenstein,"  in  the 
Capuchin  friar  in  Wallenstein's  camp  :  and  in 
glorious  Sir  Walter's  "  Old  Mortality,"  in  the  fiery 
sermons  of  Macbriar,  the  young  Covenanter  and 
martyr,  in  the  camp  of  the  faithful  before  the 
battle !  Indeed,  the  preachers  portrayed  in  fiction 
seem  to  us  sometimes  as  instructive  as,  or  more 
so  than,  the  studies  from  real  life  ;  such  characters, 
for  instance,  as  Parson  Marsh,  in  "  Norwood,"  of 
whom  it  was  said,  "  his  sermons  were  like  the 
meeting-house, — the  steeple  was  the  only  thing 
seen  by  the  folks  after  they  got  home." 

Preachers  should  study  fiction  if  they  would  learn 
how  to  preach,  and  not  merely,  as  we  have  indicated,  in 
the  character  of  the  preacher,  and  of  a  certain  order 
of  sermons,  but  even  in  the  influence  and  character 
of  a  certain  order  of  theology  in  its  social  influence  ; 
it  seems  to  us  that  New  England  literature  has 
been  remarkable  in  this  ;   we  might  refer  to  "  The 


444      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Minister's  Wooing,"  by  Mrs.  Stowe,  and  some  of 
her  other  pieces,  but  we  will  especially  mention 
"  Dr.  Johns,"  by  Ik  Marvel.  Dr.  Johns  is  a  dear, 
beautiful,  lovely,  and  lovable  old  owl,  representing 
the  dogmatic  side  of  the  old  faith  ;  and  it  is  very 
pathetic  to  read  of  one  of  the  old  Calvinist 
preacher's  sermons  after  the  death  of  his  wife,  and 
how,  in  a  pathetic  passage,  the  listeners  whispered 
to  each  other,  **  He  thinks  of  Rachel,"  but,  instantly, 
as  if  correcting  himself,  and  fixing  his  eyes  above, 
he  went  on,  "  Sometimes  I  think  thus,  but  oftener 
I  ask  myself,  Of  what  value  shall  human  ties  be, 
or  their  memories,  in  His  august  presence  whom  to 
look  upon  is  life  }  What  room  shall  there  be  for 
other  affections,  what  room  for  other  memories  than 
those  of  the  Lamb  that  was  slain  .'' "  And  so,  within 
eight  months  after  his  loss,  Mr.  Johns  thought  of 
Rachel  only  as  a  gift  which  God  had  bestowed  on 
him  to  try  him,  and  had  taken  away  to  work  in 
him  humiliation  of  heart !  More  severely  than  ever 
he  wrestled  with  the  dogmas  of  his  chosen  divines, 
harnessed  them  to  his  purposes  as  a  preacher,  and 
wrought  on  with  a  zeal  that  knew  no  abatement 
and  no  rest.  And  it  was  so  when  another  stroke 
came,  at  sixty  years  of  age,  in  the  death  of  his 
only  son.  We  do  not  know  any  more  distinct  and 
tender  picture  of  a  grave  old  Calvinistic  owl,  and 
the  effect  of  a  certain  order  of  theological  opinion 
diverted  from  the  humanity  in  the  teaching  of  our 
Lord,  and  its  effect  also,  by  its  rigidity  of  teaching, 
upon  the  daily  movement,  mental  life,  and  emotions 
even  in  sequestered  villages. 

It    is    not   less    from    the    pages   of  fiction   than 


THE  PULPIT  IN  POETRY  AND  FICTION.    445 


poetry  that  we  find  the  exercise  of  satire  upon 
some  of  the  pulpit  manifestations  of  our  times. 
We  need  not  refer  to  a  novel  so  well  known  as 
Mrs.  Oliphant's  "  Salem  Chapel,"  in  which,  however, 
not  only  the  preacher,  but  his  deacons,  come  in  for 
the  thong  of  the  satirist.  "'Three  more  pews 
applied  for  this  week,  fifteen  sittings  in  all,'  said 
Mr.  Toscr  ;  '  that's  what  I  call  satisfactory,  that  is  ; 
we  must  let  the  steam  go  down  not  on  no  account. 
You  keep  well  at  them  on  Sundays,  Mr.  Vincent, 
and  trust  to  the  managers,  sir,  to  keep  'em  up  to 
their  duty.  We  ought  to  spare  you,  and  you  ought 
to  spare  yourself.  There  hasn't  been  such  an 
opening  in  our  Church  for  fifteen  years ;  go  on  to 
it,  Mr.  Vincent,  and  I  see  no  reason  why  we 
shouldn't    put    another    fifty    on    your    salary    next 


.  >  >> 


year. 

But  the  keenest  satire  upon  the  false  and  futile 
method  of  modern  so-called  intellectual  preaching 
is  to  be  found  in  Robert  Browning's  "  Christmas 
Eve  and  Easter  Day  ; "  he  ridicules,  with  scorching 
and  withering  satire,  the  notion  that  modern  thought 
has  risen  above  the  historical  and  objective  Christ 
to  find  Him  only  in  the  subjective  idea,  forgetful 
altogether,  it  seems,  that,  as  it  has  so  often  been 
said,  it  takes  a  Christ  to  forge,  or  to  invent  a 
Christ,  even  as  it  would  take  an  Euclid  to  invent 
an  Euclid,  a  Plato  to  invent  a  Plato,  or  a  Newton 
to  forge  a  Newton  ;  but  we  can  only  thus  briefly 
refer  to  this  singular  piece  of  mingled  poetry,  satire, 
and  power. 

Some  novelists  have  very  adroitly  reproduced  the 
characteristics  of  the  pulpit  ;  and  our  readers  know 


446      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

how,  early  in  the  history  of  the  Church,  we  find 
the  sermons  of  the  Fathers  prefaced  by  a  text ; 
Charles  Kingsley,  in  his  fine  novel  of  "  Hypatia," 
which  is  really  a  most  graphic  piece  of  Church 
history,  gives  a  vivid  picture  of  the  preaching  of 
St.  Augustine,  which  no  one  at  all  acquainted  either 
with  his  exposition  of  the  Psalms,  of  the  Gospel 
according  to  John,  or,  indeed,  with  any  of  his 
writings,  will  think  at  all  exaggerated.  He  was 
preaching  to  a  mixed  multitude ;  he,  the  master 
of  ancient  rhetoric,  the  courtly  and  learned  student, 
had  before  him  not  merely  an  assembly  of  monks, 
but  of  rough  soldiers — Thracians,  Gauls,  Belgians, 
and  others.  Certainly  one  attentive  listener  won- 
dered what  the  Bishop  of  Hippo  could  have  to  say 
to  these  ;  and  then,  when  he  took  his  text  from  a 
psalm  he  had  just  read,  one  of  the  battle  psalms 
concerning  Moab  and  Amalek,  he  wondered  what  the 
preacher  would  have  to  say  about  that.  And  yet  he 
seemed  to  start  lamely  enough,  in  spite  of  the  ex- 
quisite grace  of  his  voice,  the  beauty  of  his  language, 
and  the  epigrammatic  terseness  of  his  sentences. 
His  treatment  of  his  text  seemed  at  first  like  fanciful 
allegorising  of  the  Psalm  ;  and  yet,  somehow,  there 
began  to  look  out  a  great  comprehensiveness  of 
Durpose,  so  that  the  apparently  foolish  allegorising 
presently  became  very  obviously  personal,  and, 
although  the  Edomites  had  been  made  to  put  on 
their  name  to  signify  one  sort  of  sin,  the  Ammonites 
another,  and  the  Amalekites  another,  the  hearer, 
and  all  the  hearers,  began  to  wince,  and  very  soon 
to  confess  that,  whether  Augustine  knew  truths  for 
all  men  or  not,  he  knew  sins  for  all  men,  for  himself 


THE  PULPIT  IN  POETRY  AND  FICTION    447 


as  well  as  for  all  his  hearers.  And  it  soon  became 
clear  that  there  was  in  the  mind  of  the  Father  a 
real,  vital,  organic  connection  with  what  seemed  to 
be  an  arbitrary  allegory,  while  all  the  outward 
people  of  the  Psalm  represented  really  the  powers 
and  the  people  of  the  soul,  and  his  hearers  were 
taught  that  they  were  weak  against  Moors,  and 
earthly  enemies,  because  they  were  weak  against 
enemies  more  deadly  than  Moors,  and  that  they 
could  not  fight  for  God  outwardly  while  they  were 
fighting  against  Him  inwardly.  He  would  not  go 
forth  with  their  hosts  ;  how  could  He  when  He 
was  not  among  their  hosts  ?  He,  a  Spirit,  must 
dwell  in  their  spirits,  and  the  shout  of  a  king  would 
be  among  them,  and  "  one  of  them  should  chase  a 
thousand."  We  have  always  regarded  this  passage 
in  "  Hypatia  "  as  a  fine  reproduction  of  the  style  of 
St.  Augustine  in  dealing  with  texts,  and  it  is  very 
interesting  to  notice  it,  for  this  great  master  of 
Western  theology  has,  more  or  less  unconsciously, 
ruled  the  method  of  the  pulpit  from  his  time,  and 
it  is  only  in  ours  that  this  method  of  dealing  with 
texts  has  known  decay  or  decline. 

Tennyson  has  not  altogether  omitted  the  preacher, 
and  one  passage  from  the  "  Northern  Farmer  "  is  as 
graphic  a  piece  of  description  as  any  we  possess  of 
the  old  English  country  parson  in  his  relation  to 
his  parishioners.  The  sick  farmer,  in  the  absence 
of  his  nurse,  had  broken  his  bounds,  but  he  had 
been  visited  by  both  doctor  and  parson  ;  the  farmer 
appears  to  have  imagined  all  moral  delinquencies 
to  be  condoned  by  his  mere  occasional  attendance 
at  church. 


448      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

"  '  Parson's  a-bean  loikewoise,  an'  a-sittin'  'ere  o'  my  bed. 
"The  Amoighty's  a-taakin'  o'  you  to  iss6n,  my  friend,"  a 

said, 
An'  a  towd  ma  my  sins,  an's  toithe  were  due,  an'  I  gied  it 

in  hond ; 
I  done  moy  duty  by  'un,  as  I  'a'  done  by  the  lond. 

"  '  Larn'd  a  ma'  bea.     I  reckon  I  annot  sa  mooch  to  lam. 
But  a  cost  oop,  thot  a  did,  'boot  Bessy  Harris's  barn. 
Thof  a  knaws  I  hallus  voated  wi'  Squoire,  an'  Choorch,  an' 

Staate, 
An'  i'  the  worst  o'  toimes  I  wur  niver  agin  the  raate. 

**  'An'  I  hallus    coom'd    to's  choorch  afoor    moy  Sally  wur 

dead. 
An'  'eerd  'un  bummin'  awaay  loike  a  buzzard  clock  *  ower 

my  yead. 
And  I  niver   knaw'd  whot   a  mean'd  but   I   thout   a   'ad 

summut  to  saay, 
An'  I  thout  a   said  whot  a  owt  to  'a'  said,  an'  I    coom'd 

awaay. 

"  '  Bessy  Marris'  bam  !  tha  knaws  she  laaid  it  to  mea, 
Mowt  'a'  bean,  mayhap,  for  she  wur  a  bad  'un,  shea — 
'Siver,  I  kep'  'un,  I  kep'  'un,  my  lass,  tha  mun  understond; 
I  done  my  duty  by  'un  as  I  'a'  done  by  the  lond. 

"  '  But,  Parson,  a  comes  an'  a  goos,  an'  a  says  it  easy  and 

freea, 
'The  Amoighty's  a-taakin'  you  to  issen,  my  friend,'  says 

'ea ; 
I  wean't  saay  men  be  loiars,  thof  summun  said  it  in  'aaste  : 
But  he  reads  won  sarmin  a  weeak,  an'  I  'a'  stubb'd  Thor 

naby  waaste.'  " 

There  is  a  description,  not  encouraging,  if  we 
could  possibly  think  that  it  could  apply  to  the  like 
of  us  and  our  ministrations  :  "  I  'eerd  'un  bummin' 


*  Cockchafer. 


THE  PULPIT  IN  POETRY  AND  FICTION.    449 

awaay  like  a  cockchafer  ower  my  yead,"  and  I 
niver  knaw'd  whot  a  mean'd  but  I  thout  a  'ad 
summut  to  saay,"  etc.,  etc.  We  laugh  at  the  farmer, 
but  it  is  a  very  fair  description  of  a  large  per- 
centage of  those  who  are  most  regular  listeners  to 
sermons. 

We  have  often  thought  that  among  hearers  there 
is  a  large  class  closely  resembling  "  the  mollusc." 
George  Henry  Lewis,  in  his  most  fresh  and  instruc- 
tive volume  the  "  Seaside  Studies,"  made  these  crea- 
tures a  very  special  object  of  observation.  It  is 
curious  that  "  the  mollusc  only  recognises  intensity, 
loudness.  A  wave  of  sound  agitates  the  oolithes 
in  his  ear,  and  their  agitation  communicates  to  the 
ganglion  a  sensation  of  sound,  loud  in  proportion  to 
the  agitation." 

Such  are  many  hearers — molluscous  men ;  we 
cannot  but  feel  that  we  do  frequently  very  largely 
over-estimate  the  intelligence  of  our  congregations, — - 
like  the  mollusc,  they  appreciate  loudness,  like  the 
lobster,  or  the  crab,  which  are,  we  are  told,  sensible 
to  the  noise  of  the  ever-rolling,  ever-moaning  sea, 
but  their  sense  of  hearing,  so  exquisite  in  us,  is  insen- 
sible to  all  the  marvellous  inflections  of  speech  ;  music 
would  be  quite  lost  on  them,  deafer  than  the  deafest 
adder,  "charm  you  ever  so  wisely;"  and  such  are 
some  men  ;  they  are  no  more  aware  that  they  are 
ignorant  than  is  the  lobster  or  crab  aware  of  its 
deafness  to  melody  :  these  men  have  the  sense  of 
hearing,  but  they  are  quite  insensible  to  all  that 
power  of  music  which  thrills  along  other  nerves,  in 
Handel's  melodious  thunder,  in  Beethoven's  involved 
harmony,   in    Schubert's   wild    or  choral   pathos,  in 

29 


450      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Mendelssohn's  sweet  symphony.  Molluscous  men  ! 
Still  we  have  to  preach  to  these  people  ;  and  we  can 
preach  to  them  ;  but  it  is  a  havd  matter,  for  let 
the  autumn  mists  creep  up  along  the  fields,  or  the 
winter  snows  swathe  them,  or  the  spring  or  summer 
brightness  mantle  them  in  verdure  or  bloom,  it  is 
all  the  same ;  there  are  men  whose  feelings  are 
touched  with  no  delicate  nor  pensive  melancholy, 
nor  with  any  reviving  joy.  There  is  no  mystery  in 
the  bloom,  or  brightness,  or  decay  of  nature ;  the 
stars  light  up  no  worlds  of  wonder  to  the  soul  ;  the 
seasons,  in  their  annual  round,  speak  to  no  sense  of 
the  marvellous  or  the  wonderful  in  them  ;  their  own 
being  they  revolve  no  more  than  the  cattle  which 
ruminate  in  the  fields,  and  look  out  at  us,  as  we 
pass,  with  their  large  tender  eyes.  The  last  and 
highest  degree  of  wonder  that  molluscous  man 
knows  is  as  when  a  cow  stands  before  a  new  gate 
in  a  field  ;  if  he  have  thoughts,  they  do  not  wander 
through  eternity  ;  they  are  "  thoughts  which  perish," 
even  as  he,  in  the  language  of  the  Scriptures,  is  as 
"  the  beasts  that  perish." 

Our  readers  are  surely  well  acquainted  with  the 
extraordinary  poem  of  Whittier,  called  "  The 
Preacher ; "  it  is  indeed  a  very  fine  essay  on  some 
of  the  features  of  the  old  pulpit  of  New  England  ; 
for  instance,  the  portrait  of  Jonathan  Edwards  : — 

"  In  the  Church  of  the  wilderness  Edwards  wrought, 
Shaping  his  creed  at  the  forge  of  thought ; 
And  with  Thor's  own  hammer  welded  and  bent 
The  iron  links  of  his  argument, 
Which  strove  to  grasp  in  its  mighty  span 
The  purpose  of  God  and  the  fate  of  man  1 


THE  PULPIT  IN  POETRY  AND  FICTION.    451 

Yet  faithful  still  in  his  daily  round 

To  the  weak,  and  the  poor,  and  the  sin-sick  found. 

The  schoolman's  lore,  and  the  casuist's  art 

Drew  warmth  and  life  from  his  fervent  heart. 

Had  he  not  seen  in  the  solitudes 

Of  his  deep  and  dark  Northampton  woods 

A  vision  of  love  about  him  fall  ? 

Not  the  blinding  splendour  that  fell  on  Saul, 

But  the  tenderer  glory  that  rests  on  them 

Who  walk  in  the  new  Jerusalem, 

Where  never  the  sun  nor  the  moon  are  known. 

But  the  Lord  and  His  love  are  the  light  alone  1 

And  watching  the  sweet,  still  countenance 

Of  the  wife  of  his  bosom  rapt  in  trance, 

Had  he  not  treasured  each  broken  word 

Of  the  mystical  wonder  seen  and  heard ; 

And  loved  the  beautiful  dreamer  more 

That  thus  to  the  desert  of  earth  she  bore 

Clusters  of  Eshcol  from  Canaan's  shore  ?  " 

Man  has  within  him  a  nature  which  thirsts  for 
living  water,  sighs  for  light,  longs  for  a  certain 
sound,  and  the  whole  story  of  the  pulpit  through 
all  ages  is  only  the  story  of  the  efforts  made  by 
patient,  painful,  and  earnest  men,  to  supply  those 
infinite  desires  and  wants.  To  satisfy  such  desires 
some  of  the  most  glorious  and  gifted  of  our  race 
have  separated  themselves,  and  set  themselves  apart. 
Jonathan  Edwards  had  many  of  the  attributes  of  all, 
light,  refreshment,  and  awakening  ;  very  much  such 
a  character  as  the  lovely  and  illustrious  Bishop 
Berkeley,  he  ran  his  metaphysics  into  impossible 
and  unattainable  zeniths,  and  heights.  His  "Freedom 
of  the  Will  "  is  unanswerable,  but  it  is  dreadful ; 
like  Hegel,  he  dealt  with  the  universe  and  mind 
as  pure  thought  ;  but  a  tender  affectionateness 
modulates  every  sentence  in  his  "  History  of  Redemp- 


452      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

tion  ; "  and  when  he  preached,  his  accents,  permeated 
by  deepest  feelings,  justified  to  himself  by-pro- 
foundest  speculation,  harmonised  and  fitted  to  his 
conception  of  God's  purposes  and  man's  respon- 
sibilities, compelled  men  to  listen,  and  quiver  and 
tingle  through  every  nerve  of  their  moral  being 
while  they  listened.  Marvellously  inconsistent  seem 
some  of  the  moods  and  powers  of  the  preacher  with 
some  of  the  speculations  of  the  thinker;  and  wonder- 
ful, it  sometimes  seems,  that  so  sweet,  seraphic,  and 
tender  a  nature  could  have  been  so  severe.  Emotion 
welled  up  within  him,  but  it  fell  into  the  iron  cistern 
and  basin  of  hard  imperious  logic.  Perhaps  a  little 
thought  will  explain  the  coherence  of  this  remark- 
able character ;  the  logical  ^possibility  prepares 
the  way  for  Divine  possibilities,  and  assurances  of 
grace,  when  science  only  reveals  her  despair.  The 
supernatural  missions  of  the  Spirit,  which  can  never 
be  straitened,  become  more  infinitely  bright,  sooth- 
ing, and  tender  to  that  part  in  man  which  can 
never  be  satisfied  by  sequences  and  conclusions 
unless  they  minister  to  its  infinite  hopes. 

In  some  way  this  same  contradiction  has  been 
felt  and  transcended  by  all  the  greatest  souls  ;  by 
Luther,  in  several  notable  and  noble  passages  ;  and, 
more  popularly,  by  Whitefield,  called  to  sound,  and 
gauge,  the  moral  lapse  of  his  race,  and  the  times 
in  which  he  lived,  and  to  draw  in  sharp  lines  the 
contrast  of  human  frailty  with  the  perfect  law  of 
truth  ;  and  hence  Whittier,  in  the  same  poem  in 
which  he  describes  Edwards,  delineates  Whitefield  : 
two  friends  are  walking  and  talking  not  far  from  the 
old  and  quiet  town  ; 


THE  PULPIT  IN  POETRY  AND  FICTION    453 

*'  Awhile  my  friend  with  rapid  search 
O'erran  the  landscape.     '  Yonder  spire 
Over  grey  roofs,  a  shaft  of  fire  ; 
What  is  it,  pray  ? '     '  The  Whitefield  Church  1 » 
Walled  about  by  its  basement  stones, 
There  rest  the  marvellous  prophet's  bones. 
Lo  !  by  the  Merimack  Whitefield  stands 
In  the  temple  that  never  was  made  with  hands,— 
Curtains  of  azure,  and  crystal  wall, 
And  dome  of  the  sunshine  over  all ! 
A  homeless  pilgrim,  with  dubious  name 
Blown  about  on  the  wings  of  fame  ; 
Now  as  an  angel  of  blessing  classed. 
And  now  as  a  mad  enthusiast. 
Possessed  by  the  one  dread  thought  that  lent  J 
Its  goad  to  his  fiery  temperament, 
Up  and  down  the  world  he  went, 
A  John  the  Baptist  crying, — Repent  1 
Yet  he,  to  whom,  in  the  painful  stress 
Of  zeal  on  fire  from  its  own  excess. 
Heaven  seemed  so  vast,  and  earth  so  small 
That  man  was  nothing,  and  God  was  all." 

This  would  be  all-imperfect — is  perhaps  imperfect 
— if  we  did  not  remember  that  the  world  can  well 
afford  a  prophet,  his  soul  all  on  fire,  ablaze  with 
zeal  for  the  Lord  of  hosts,  coming  down  from  his  rapt 
communions,  and  Divine  and  illuminating  perceptions. 
He  may  well  be  hailed,  when  it  is  known  that  man 
is  in  a  state  of  fearful  aberration  from  the  rectitude 
and  purity  of  the  Divine  law  ;  the  immense  lapse 
in  the  one  instance  may  well  permit  the  fearful 
thunders  of  Ezekiel  and  Nahum  to  roll  in  the 
other  ;  and  preaching  never  becomes  the  voice  of 
inspiration  to  startle  and  alarm  until  the  infiniteness 
of  Divine  law  and  the  infinite  consequences  of  its 
infractions  are  perceived. 


454      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Among  the  very  sweet  delineations  of  American 
ministerial  life  is  that  in  Mr.  Aldrich's  "  Prudence 
Palfrey,"  the  description  of  Parson  Wiburd  Hawkins' 
trouble.     Poor  Parson  Hawkins  had  played  his  part 
nearly  to   the  end,  but   did   not  perceive  that   the 
scene  had  changed ;  he  had  been  prattling  innocently 
to  half-averted  ears  for  many  a  summer  and  winter  ; 
the  parish,  as  a  parish,  had  become  tired  of  old  man 
Hawkins,  although,  for  fifty  years,  he  had  christened, 
married,  and    buried    them,   and   now  they  wanted 
to  get  rid  of  him  ;  and  that  day  the  deacons  waited 
upon    him,    in    the    cobwebbed    old    parsonage,    to 
suggest  the  expediency  of  his  retirement  from  active 
parochial  duties  ;  he  was  seventy-nine  last  Thanks- 
giving ;  he  had  come  among  them  fresh  from  the 
university,   and  had  given  to  them  the  enthusiasm 
of  his  youth  and  the  maturity  of  his  manhood,  and 
it  was  his  prayer  that  when  the  angel  of  the  Lord 
came  to  call  him  away,  he  might  be  found  preaching 
the  word  from  the  pulpit  of  the  old  brick  church 
of  Rivermouth.      But  the  old,  old  pulpit,  which  had 
been  hallowed  by  a  hundred  associations,  had  been 
removed, — it  had  been  built  in  King  George's  time — 
and   eminent  divines  whose  names  are  fresh  in  the 
colonial   history   had    stood   under   that    antiquated 
sounding  board  ;   that  did   not   matter  so  much  to 
him,  for  he  did  not  care  whether  the  Scriptures  were 
expounded  from  pine,  or  black  walnut ;  but  now  the 
real  trouble  had  come  upon  him.      Deacons  Wendell 
and    Twembly,   however,    found    their    mission    per- 
plexing.    "  We  tried  to   let   him  down  easy,"   said 
Deacon  Zeb  Twembly,  "  but,   Lord  bless  you,  you 
never  see  an  old  gentleman  so  unwillin',  and  so  hard 


THE  PULPIT  IN  POETRY  AND  FICTION.    455 

to  be  let  down."  But  when  finally  he  was  made  to 
comprehend  the  astounding  fact  that  the  old  brick 
church  of  Rivermouth  actually  wished  him  to 
relinquish  his  pastorate,  the  aged  clergyman  bowed 
his  head,  and,  waving  his  hands  in  a  sort  of  bene- 
diction over  the  two  deacons,  retreated  slowly,  with 
his  chin  on  his  breast,  into  a  little  room  adjoining 
the  study,  leaving  these  pillars  of  the  Church  standing 
rather  awkwardly  in  the  middle  of  the  apartment. 
For  a  new  generation  had  come  up ;  there  were 
young  ministers  who  came  along,  and  talked  about 
one  Mr.  Darwin.  Old  Parson  Hawkins  never  talked 
about  this  latest  of  the  apostles,  Darwin.  And  then 
there  was  that  great  man,  the  retired  brewer,  John 
Dent,  who  troubled  himself  very  little  with  parish 
affairs,  although  he  contributed  very  liberally  to  all 
the  charities,  and  was  always  in  his  pew  at  the 
Sunday  morning  service,  although  during  the  sermon, 
whether  it  were  long  or  short,  brilliant  or  dull,  he 
invariably  went  to  sleep ;  he  did  not  admire  the 
poor  old  parson  warmly,  but,  if  Mr.  Dent  had  loved 
him,  he  would  have  gone  to  sleep  all  the  same ; 
there  are  men  who  cannot,  to  save  themselves  from 
perdition,  keep  awake  in  sermon-time.  So  the 
deacons  served  the  notice  on  old  Parson  Hawkins, 
and  he  went  and  locked  himself  in  his  inner  study ; 
and  the  hours  went  on,  and  he  did  not  come  forth  ; 
the  stroke  had  been  too  much  for  him.  It  was 
evening,  and  the  day  was  dying,  as  they  broke  open 
the  door,  and  found  him  sitting,  the  Bible  open  on 
his  knee,  and  his  finger  seemed  to  be  pointing  to 
the  text ;  some  read  it  as  they  peeped  over  the 
slanted  shoulder, — "Well  done,  thou  good  and  faithful 


456      2HE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

servant ;  enter   thou   into  the   joy  of   thy    Lord  !  " 
"  That  was  the  parson's  last  text,"  said  Uncle  Jedd. 
"  Capital  punishment  ought  to  be  abolished  in  New- 
Hampshire,"  said   Ex-postmaster  Snelling,  "  if  they 
don't  hang  Deacon  Wendell  and  the  rest  of  'em  ! " 
"  Might  as  well  have  took  a  musket  and  shot  the 
ole  man,"  observed  another.     Mr.  Snelling  was  not 
naturally  a  sanguinary  person,  but  he  had  been  super- 
seded in  the  post  office  the  year  before  by  Deacon 
Wendell,  and   flesh   is   flesh  !     This  is  a  suggestive 
little  portrait,   but  we   should  not  have  thought  it 
so    applicable   to   the   state  of   society  in   America 
as  to  that  of  our  country  ;    with    us,    it   is  simply 
true   that  the  age  which  is  supposed  to  give    ripe 
wisdom  and  experience  to  other  professions,  when, 
in  the  army,  men  are  looking  for  highest  promotion, 
when  the  accomplished  lawyer  expects  to  exchange 
the  bar  for  the  bench,  when,  in  our  English  episco- 
pate, the   clergyman    expects   to   be   raised    to   the 
rank  of  the  bishop,  the  age  of  maturity,  of  wisdom, 
of  fruitful  learning,  this  is  the  age  when  the  Congre- 
gational clergyman  is  cast  out  as  a  dry  tree  !      And 
this  is  one  of  the  circumstances  which  will  always 
depreciate  the  pulpit,  the  fact  that  the  old  age  of 
the  minister  is  delivered  over  to  years  of  which  he 
says,  "  There  is  no  pleasure  in  them." 

We  suppose  the  sweetest  portrait  of  a  woman 
preacher  is  that  of  Dinah  in  "  Adam  Bede  ; "  indeed, 
George  Eliot  is  remarkable  for  the  distinct  variety 
of  portraits  of  preachers  suspended  in  the  gallery 
of  her  pages.  What  a  succession  of  studies  in  her 
"  Scenes  and  Sketches  of  Clerical  Life " !  what 
portraits   of  old    English   vicars   and  rectors  !  what 


THE  PULPIT  IN  POETRY  AND  FICTION.    457 

likenesses  of  every  order  of  preacher,  from  the 
great  Savonarola  to  the  charming  Congregationalist 
minister,  Rufus  Lyon,  in  "Felix  Holt  "  !  But  Dinah 
Morris,  this  is  the  portrait  most  impressive  of  all. 
We  are  ourselves  almost  as  much  struck  with  her 
appearance  as  the  stranger  who  saw  her  mount 
the  cart  and  stood  to  hear  her  preach — "  the  pretty 
preacher  woman,"  as  some  of  her  hearers  called  her  ; 
no  mantling  smile  of  conscious  saintship,  nor  indica- 
tion of  denunciatory  bitterness,  and  nothing  of  the 
ecstatic  bilious  ;  walking  to  the  place  of  preaching 
as  unconsciously  as  if  going  to  market ;  unconscious 
of  her  outward  appearance,  and  nothing  which 
said,  "  I  know  you  think  me  a  pretty  woman,  too 
young  to  preach ; "  no  casting  up  or  down  of  the 
eyelids,  no  attitude  of  the  arms  which  said,  "  You 
must  think  of  me  as  a  saint."  She  held  no  book 
in  her  ungloved  hands,  but  let  them  hang  down, 
lightly  crossed  before  her,  as  she  stood,  and  turned 
her  grey  eyes  on  the  people.  There  was  no  keen- 
ness in  the  eyes  ;  they  seemed  to  be  rather  shedding 
love  than  making  observations.  It  is  a  very 
charming  portrait,  and  many  artists,  since  the  pub- 
lication of  "  Adam  Bede,"  have  attempted  on  the 
canvas  to  realise  Dinah  Morris  to  the  eye. 

And  the  words  and  the  sermons  of  Dinah  are 
among  the  sweetest  of  words.  "  Think  what  it  is 
not  to  hate  anything  but  sin  ;  to  be  full  of  love 
to  every  creature  ;  to  be  frightened  at  nothing ;  to 
be  sure  that  all  things  will  turn  to  good  ;  not  to 
mind  pain,  because  it  is  our  Father's  will  ;  to  know 
that  nothing — no,  not  if  the  earth  was  to  be  burnt 
up,  or  the  waters  to  come  and  drown  us — nothing 


458      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

could  part  us  from  God,  who  loves  us,  and  who 
fills  our  souls  with  peace  and  joy,  because  we  are 
sure  that  whatever  He  wills  is  holy,  just,  and  good. 
Take  this  blessedness  ;  it  is  offered  to  you  ;  it  is 
the  good  news  that  Jesus  came  to  preach  to  the 
poor.  It  is  not  like  the  riches  of  this  world,  so 
that  the  more  one  gets  the  less  the  rest  can  have  ; 
God  is  without  end  ;  His  love  is  without  end. 

**  *  Its  streams  the  whole  creation  reach. 
So  plenteous  is  the  store  ; 
Enough  for  all,  enough  for  each. 
Enough  for  evermore ! '  " 

And  perhaps  we  shall  not  be  wandering  from 
the  immediate  topic  of  this  chapter  when  we  say 
that,  as  to  poetry  and  what  is  called  fiction,  the 
Bible  is  altogether  written  in  a  language  now,  to 
us,  very  greatly  incoherent  and  unknown.  Bishop 
Warburton  has  said  in  his  "  Divine  Legation  of 
Moses,"  "  The  old  Asiatic  style,  so  highly  figurative, 
seems,  by  what  we  find  of  its  remains  in  the 
prophetic  language  of  the  sacred  writings,  to  have 
been  evidently  fashioned  to  the  mode  of  the  ancient 
hieroglyphics,  both  curiologic  and  tropical ;  of  the 
second  kind,  which  answers  to  the  tropical  hiero- 
glyphic, is  the  calling  empires  kings,  and  nobles 
by  the  names  of  the  heavenly  luminaries, — the  sun, 
moon,  and  stars  ;  their  temporary  disasters,  or  entire 
overthrow,  by  eclipses  and  extinctions  ;  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  nobility  by  stars  falling  from  the  firma- 
ment ;  hostile  invasions  by  thunder  and  tempestuous 
winds  ;  the  leaders  of  armies,  conquerors,  and 
founders  of  empires,  by  lions,  bears,  leopards,  goats. 


THE  PULPIT  IN  POETRY  AND  FICTION    459 

or  high  trees.  In  a  word,  the  prophetic  style  seems 
to  be  speaking  hieroglyph."  No  doubt  there  is 
much  truth  in  all  this,  and  it  is  wonderful  that  we 
have  no  single  work,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  worthy 
to  be  called  adequate  and  harmonious  on  the 
figurative  language  of  the  Bible  ;  and  most  men 
have  spoken  without  any  key  to  its  long-forgotten 
and  mystic  meanings. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

SOME  VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE  FROM  A 
PREACHERS  POINT  OF  VIEW. 

TPIE  pulpit  is  a  Christian    institution  ;  Gibbon, 
the  satirist,  the  historian,  and  the  slanderer  of 
early  Christianity,  says,  "  The  custom   of  preaching 
which   seems   to    constitute   a   considerable  part   of 
Christian  devotion  had  not  been  introduced  into  the 
temples  of  antiquity,  and  the  ears  of  monarchs  were 
never  invaded   by  the  harsh  sounds  of  popular  elo- 
quence   until    the    pulpits    were    filled    with    sacred 
orators,  who  possessed  some  advantages  unknown  to 
their  profane  predecessors."      Such  is  Gibbon's  sar- 
castic way  of  stating  the  fact  of  the  rise  and   origin 
of  preaching  in  the  world.      It  was  derived   from  no 
precedent  nor  example  in  the  schools  of  Greece  and 
Rome  ;  it  emanated  from  the  example  and  commis- 
sion of  our  Lord.      In  the  brief  period  during  which 
Julian  the  Apostate  cast  down  the  youthful  Church, 
and  permitted  the  empire,  in  the  language  of  Gibbon, 
to    breathe    the    air    of   freedom    of   literature  and 
paganism,      Julian      himself     sought     to      institute 
preaching  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  the  doctrines 
of  paganism  and  idolatry.     Of  course  such  an  insti- 
tution for  paganism  would  be,  must  be  impossible. 
Preaching  is  an  eminently  spiritual  power  ;   as  its 


VARIETIES   OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  461 

spiritual  functions  fade,  it  dies  down  into  the  merest 
machinery.  Paganism  and  Atheism  are  little  better 
than  exhausted  air-receivers.  The  wings  of  faith 
and  noble  speech  can  find  no  vivacity  nor  movement. 
But  in  all  ages  of  Christianity,  and  especially  in  all 
the  more  living  ages,  it  has  been  the  aegis,  the 
palladium,  and  almost,  it  may  be  said,  the  oracle  of 
the  Church. 

It  is  confidently  affirmed,  however,  on  many 
hands,  that  the  pulpit  is  almost  an  institution  of  the 
past  ;  that  it  will  not  long  survive  ;  that  its  triumphs 
are  now  rather  apparent  than  real  ;  that  immense 
masses  of  the  population,  and  the  intelligence  and 
wealth  of  the  nations,  never  come  beneath  its 
influence  at  all  ;  that  it  has  felt  the  pressure  of  the 
highly  fascinating  literature  of  our  age ;  that  its 
diminished  power  is  proportioned  to,  if  not  caused 
by  the  diminished  reverence  for  the  Sabbath  ;  that 
the  very  practical  character  of  the  age  impairs  its 
influence  ;  that,  in  a  word,  the  pulpit  no  longer 
sways  the  imperial  sceptre  it  once  held  over  manners 
and  morals  in  society,  conscience,  thought,  and 
character.  It  has  even  been  said  that  oratory  is  a 
lost  art ;  that  modern  eloquence  cannot  exhibit  the 
glorious  perfection  of  olden  times  ;  that  Greece  had 
her  Demosthenes,  and  Rome  her  Cicero,  but  that  no 
speakers  in  modern  times  can  be  pronounced  their 
equals  ; — we  may  leave  the  senate  and  the  bar  to 
find  their  own  vindicators,  but  we  scarcely  feel  that 
the  pulpit  has  occasion  for  so  mournful  an  elegy ; 
it  may  be  granted  that,  though  there  are  few 
living  orators,  the  most  recent  times  have  known 
extraordinary     men  ;     we    need    no    more    hesitate 


462      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

to  refer  again  and  again  to  Robert  Hall  than  the 
admirers  of  classical  times  to  refer  again  and  again 
to  Demosthenes. 

And  yet  far  be  it  from  us  to  depreciate  the  work 
of  the  ministry  ;  it  seems  as  if  the  pulpit  had  fallen 
upon  evil  times  ;  there  are  other  hearers  like  old 
Gridly  Byles,  in  Dr.  Holmes'  novel,  who  used  to  go 
to  church,  and  listen  to  the  preaching  of  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Sloker,  because  he  did  not  believe  a  word  of 
Mr.  Sloker's  favourite  doctrines,  but  then  he  liked  to 
go  there  "  because  it  gave  him  the  opportunity  of 
growling  to  himself  during  the  sermon,  and  to  go 
home  growling  and  scolding  all  the  way  about  it." 
Something  different  is  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson's 
opinion  of  preaching.  He  says,  "  It  is  a  physician 
conquering  his  audience  by  infusing  his  soul  into 
them,  and  hence,"  he  continues,  "  I  do  not  know  of 
any  kind  of  history,  except  the  event  of  a  battle,  to 
which  people  listen  with  more  interest  than  to  any 
anecdote  of  eloquence,  and  the  wise  think  it  better 
than  a  battle.  You  may  find  the  orator  as  a 
physician  in  some  lowly  Bethel  by  the  seaside,  where 
a  hard-featured,  scarred,  and  wrinkled  Methodist 
becomes  the  poet  of  the  sailor  and  the  fisherman, 
whilst  he  pours  out  the  abundant  streams  of  his 
thought  through  a  language  all  glittering  and  fiery 
with  imagination,  a  man  who  never  knew  the 
looking-glass  or  the  critic,  a  man  whom  college 
drill  or  patronage  never  made,  and  whom  praise 
cannot  spoil." 

This  beautiful  eulogy  upon  preaching  and 
the  pulpit  from  the  great  sage  of  Concord,  whose 
testimony  is  above  all  suspicion,  most  likely  refers 


VARIETIES   OF  CLERICAL   LIFE.  463 

to  Father  Taylor,  whose  first  ministrations  were 
among  the  rough  fishermen  of  Marblehead,  while  his 
finished  and  polished  eulogist  was  pursuing  his  brief 
ministry  in  Boston. 

We  are  not  likely  to  forget,  many,  many  years 
since,  when  a  very  young  man,  being  called  to  preach 
at  St.  Ives,  in  Cornwall,  a  sort  of  English  Cape  Cod  ; 
and  the  reading  of  that  charming  little  New  England 
sea  idyl  and  gem  of  genius,  "  The  Cape  Cod  Folk," 
reminded  us  of  the  people  we  saw  in  Cornwall  then  ; 
we  remember,  shortly  after  we  arrived,  walking 
through  the  town,  and  we  strolled  into  a  very 
large  Methodist  chapel  ;  the  body  of  the  church 
was  full,  from  five  to  seven  hundred  people, 
fishers,  miners,  their  wives,  mothers,  sisters,  and 
children,  all  on  their  knees.  When  we  entered  all 
was  still  ;  there  seemed  to  be  no  leader  ;  there 
was  no  voice  ;  presently  a  voice,  a  clear,  sweet, 
matured  voice  struck  up — and  all  the  six  or  seven 
hundred  joined, — 

*'  I'm  glad  I  am  converted, 
Ye  followers  of  the  Lamb  I 
Sing  on,  pray  on,  followers  of  Emmanuel  f 
Sing  on,  pray  on,  followers  of  the  Lamb  !  " 

There  was  a  pause — silence — we  expected  to  hear 
a  voice  in  prayer,  but  from  another  part  of  the  chapel 
another  voice  struck  up — and  again  all  joined, — 

"  I'm  going  to  see  the  Saviour, 
You're  going  to  see  the  Saviour, 
We're  going  to  see  the  Saviour, 

Followers  of  the  Lamb  ! 
Sing  on,  pray  on,  followers  of  Emmanuel! 
Sing  on.  pray  on,  followers  of  the  Lamb  !  " 


,464      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

It  seemed  all  inexpressibly  sweet,  so  simple,  no 
effort  ;  the  voices  rose  and  fell  like  the  tides  of 
a  quiet  sea.  There  followed  some  words  of  medi- 
cine for  the  soul,  like  those  of  which  Mr.  Emerson 
speaks  ;  then  some  two  or  three  prayers,  very 
brief,  live  coals  from  the  altar,  only  a  few  sentences  ; 
and  then  as  all  were  on  their  knees,  some  voice 
struck  up  that  old  refrain, — old  now,  but  heard 
by  us  for  the  first  time  then, — ah,  so  many,  so 
many  years  ago !  This  also  was  a  woman's  voice 
which  led  the  song, 

"  Come  to  Jesus — just  now  I 
He  will  save  you — ^just  now  I 
I  bellQve  it— just  now  I  " 

Perhaps  we  take  a  liberty  in  describing  these 
scenes  of  a  warm  religious  life,  but  the  memory 
seems  so  simple  and  so  sweet,  so  natural  and  so 
good,  and  contrasts  so  lovably  with  the  rude 
Salvation  Armyism  to  which  we  have  become  accus- 
tomed. We  think  Emerson  would  have  enjoyed 
that  service  in  the  old  Cornish  chapel. 

What  is  the  work  of  the  minister  "i  Beyond ! 
Beyond !  "  We  want  a  beyond  everywhere."  Did 
not  Jacobi  well  define  man  to  be  "  a  yonder-sided 
animal "  .-*  and  this  was  never  much  better  put 
than  by  the  old  sailor  in  one  of  George  MacDonald's 
fictions,  who  said,  "  I  ain't  a  bit  frightened  of  our 
parson ;  I'll  tell  you  why,  sir ;  he's  got  a  good 
telescope,  and  he  gets  to  the  masthead,  and  he 
keeps  a  good  look-out,  and  he  sings  out,  *  Land  !  land 
ahead  ! '  or  *  Breakers  ahead ! '  and  he  gives  direc- 
tions accordin'."     We  say,  at  the  risk  of  shocking 


VARTETTFS   OF  CLERICAL   LIFE.  465' 

our  readers,  that  we  give  to  natural  theology, 
and  to  the  doctrines  and  utility  of  natural  theology, 
the  very  smallest  portion  of  our  faith.  Of  course 
we  believe  in  the  deductions  of  the  unity,  per- 
sonality, beneficence,  and  wisdom  of  God  from 
the  fields  of  nature ;  but  it  is  very  clear,  to  our 
mind,  that  neither  of  these  deductions  would  be 
very  possible  without  revelation.  Perhaps  it  would 
be  possible  from  the  book  of  nature  to  prove 
the  converse  of  the  unity,  personality,  beneficence, 
and  wisdom  of  God.  Nature  seems  to  say  very 
contradictory  things.  The  light  is  cheerful,  but 
the  lightning  is  terrible ;  the  rain  freshens,  but  the 
hailstorm  frightens  ;  we  can  wish  to  walk  upon 
the  wings  of  the  wind,  but  who  would  wish  to  walk 
through  the  halls  and  the  secret  places  of  thunder .'' 
The  ocean  is  calm  and  glorious,  but  we  have  seen 
a  brave  vessel  go  down  ;  it  melted  like  a  snowflake, 
and  every  soul  perished.  The  vintage  of  Italy  is 
gay  and  merry,  but  the  fires  of  the  Phlegraean  fields 
are  fierce ;  and  the  legends  of  Vesuvius  are  neither 
few,  nor  comfortable.  Nature  is  a  great  contra- 
diction. We  cannot  but  fancy  sometimes  that  we 
see  some  spiteful  demon  destroying  her  intelligence 
and  her  beauty.  We  walk  into  our  garden,  and 
see  the  blight  upon  our  beanstalk,  the  rot  at  our 
potato  root.  If  we  fly  to  the  arctic  realms,  we 
perish  in  huge  empires  of  ice  ;  if  we  make  our 
hut  beneath  the  rich  gums  and  trees  of  the  south, 
the  tiger  leaps  on  us  from  the  jungle,  the  cobra 
or  the  constrictor  from  the  tree !  All  creatures 
are  at  war  with  each  other.  Sometimes  the  whole 
world  seems  to  us  to  be  a  drop  of  stagnant  water 

30 


466      THE  VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

in  the  universe,  or  a  great  spider's  web.  We  look, 
and  behold  a  huge  Midgard  serpent  coiling  round 
the  whole  world — our  planet.  It  is  plain  there 
have  obtruded  powers  into  our  world  not  Divine. 
Deny  the  existence  of  a  devil  if  we  will,  it  is  still 
clear  to  us  that  there  is  a  malignant  element  going 
to  and  fro  in  the  earth,  and  walking  up  and  down 
in  it.  On  the  whole,  we  do  not  thank  nature  for 
her  consolations.  We  have  tried  them  ;  they  end 
by  turning  us  into  a  stoic  or  a  stone.  We  have 
interrogated  nature  ;  we  see  how  much  she  will  give 
us.  Go  to  a  weeping  widow,  or  husband,  by  the 
side  of  the  dreadful  coffin,  and  carry  your  volume 
of  natural  theology ;  if  one  brought  it  to  us 
there,  mad  and  frantic,  we  should  throw  it  into  the 
flames.  Go  to  a  cottage  in  a  famine,  and  talk 
natural  theology !  Go  to  the  poor  in  a  workhouse, 
and  talk  natural  theology!  Read  a  lecture  on 
natural  theology  on  a  battle-field  !  Why,  it  is  one 
of  those  horrible  pieces  of  wall-eyed  cold-stone 
mockery  that  would  drive  a  brave  heart  deaf, 
dumb,  frantic,  mad!  Beautiful!  beautiful!  Read 
some  pages  of  Seneca,  Boethius,  or  Paley,  when 
your  house  is  in  flames,  your  wife  dying,  your  only 
child  lying  dead  !  Oh  soul !  fancy  a  gospel  without 
the  sujferna.tura\ !  Why,  God,  to  such  a  system 
of  thought,  seems  to  sit  upon  a  throne  of  glaciers ! 
Immortality  looks  like  a  pathway  seen  girt  and 
gleaming,  but  through  Alpine  snows  !  Christ  stands 
before  us  like  a  marble  statue  in  a  church  hoary 
with  the  frosts  of  ages  !  Religion  is  chiselled  down 
to  duty,  devotion  to  thinking  about  God.  The 
human  race  welters  before  us  like  a  world  full  of 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  467 

helpless  idiots  shipwrecked  on  the  frozen  zone ; 
and  the  Gospel,  to  mend  all,  is  a  messenger  of  which 
it  may  be  said,  not  to  the  poor,  to  the  wayfaring 
man  is  it  preached,  but  to  the  rational,  the  polite, 
the  frigid  scholar,  "  is  the  word  of  this  salvation 
sent." 

Now,  after  such  a  cheerless  faith,  the  Gospel  is 
like  the  birth  of  the  Magnet  to  the  nations ;  and 
what  a   revelation   was   that  ! 

"  Long  lay  the  ocean  paths  from  man  concealed ; 
Light  shone  from  heaven,  the  magnet  was  revealed  1 " 

It  has  never  been  the  same  world  since  the 
discovery  of  the  magnet  ;  and,  with  all  our  ample 
discoveries  lately, — printing  press,  steam,  and  tele- 
graph,— let  us  attempt  to  conceive  what  a  world 
it  would  be  if  the  revelation  of  the  magnet  were 
lost.  And  is  it  not  wonderful  to  think  of  it  ? — the 
vast  ocean  highway  covered  with  fleets  of  nations, 
every  ship  lying  at  the  mercy  of  a  little  dancing 
needle  !  Think  of  the  law  of  the  needle'!  the  subtle, 
mystical  chemistry,  the  calculable  but  inconceivable 
force  which  makes  the  tremulousness  of  the  little 
bit  of  steel  to  be  even  as  a  pillar  of  fire  by  night 
and  a  pillar  of  cloud  by  day  to  wandering  captains. 
One  wonders  how  they  ever  managed  their  seafaring 
exploits  before  this  discovery. 

Now  what  the  magnet  has  been  to  the  commerce 
of  the  world,  that  Christ  has  been  in  the  revelation 
of  His  truth  to  men.  And  just  as  every  captain  has 
his  own  needle  on  board  his  ship,  and  that  needle  is 
his  nautical  creed,  just  such  is  faith  in  Christ  to  all 
believers  ;  but  the  needle  is  not  the  loadstone ;  "  eye 


468      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  hath  it  entered 
into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive  "  the  mysteries  of 
that  secret  occult  North,  but  every  pilot  knows 
where  he  is,  and  how  he  is,  by  that  trembling  little 
presence,  and  by  it  he  steers  right  on.  So  the  faiths 
of  individuals,  men,  and  Churches,  are  no  more  than 
needles  which  have  felt  the  power  of  the  loadstone  ; 
but  the  measure  to  which  they  have  felt  it  gives  the 
law  and  the  rectitude,  we  would  even  say  the  vitality 
of  the  steering. 

Now  in  our  brief  recitation  of  the  varieties  of 
preaching  life,  we  need  not  begin  by  attempting  to 
recite  any  of  the  wild  stories  of  early  monkery  ;  let 
our  readers  read  them  for  themselves  in  Montalem- 
bert's  fascinating  "  History  of  the  Monks  of  the 
West  ; "  wonderful  are  the  tales  of  those  first 
preachers,  as  they  set  forth  on  their  early  enterprises 
into  the  woods  and  forests, — stories  like  that  which 
is  told  of  GerasimuSj  a  great  preacher,  who,  having 
drawn  a  thorn  out  of  the  foot  of  a  lion,  was  never 
abandoned  by  the  grateful  animal  ;  the  terrible 
beast  laid  aside  all  his  bad  ways,  and  lived  ever  after 
as  a  kind  of  monk  and  member  of  the  monkish 
community  ;  he  lived  upon  milk  and  boiled  herbs, 
just  like  the  other  monks,  and  he  drew  water  from 
the  spring  for  the  needs  of  the  monastery,  and,  when 
his  friend,  the  old  Abbot,  died,  he  followed  him  to 
the  grave,  making  great  lamentations  over  him  all 
the  way.  Poor  old  lion  !  converted  from  his  wild  and 
wicked  ways  and  becoming  a  monk  !  It  is  exactly 
in  stories  like  this  that,  somehow,  Protestant  ministers 
and  preachers  seem  so  inferior  to  Rome.  We  have 
never  been  able  to  achieve  this  kind  of  success  ;  we 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  469 

read  of  converted  wolves,  appearing  regularly  every 
night  at  the  hut,  exactly  at  the  supper  hour,  for  the 
remains  of  the  evening  repast,  licking  the  hands  of 
the  host  in  gratitude  and  thankfulness  ;  we  have  no 
such  stories  ;  but  the  history  of  Africaner,  the 
mighty  African  chief,  and  his  conversion  by  Robert 
Moffat  shows  how 

"  Lions  and  beasts  of  savage  name 
Put  on  the  nature  of  the  Lamb." 

We  have  dealt  with  these  stories  somewhat  satiri- 
cally, but,  perhaps,  could  we  have  been  a  little  nearer 
than  we  are  to  the  scenery  of  the  miracle,  it  might 
only  be  that  thus  was  set  forth  some  great  human 
conversion,  like  that  of  Africaner,  strong  as  the  lion, 
cruel  as  the  wolf,  to  whom  the  preacher's  word,  used 
by  Divine  grace,  had  given  the  meekness  and  docility 
of  the  saintly  child. 

But  leaving  monastic  stories  and  times,  we  must 
direct  our  attention  nearer  home,  and  to  lives  nearer 
to  our  own  ;  and  we  may,  not  unusefully,  regard  a 
homely  kind  of  character,  and  a  homely  eloquence 
which  has  sometimes  seemed  to  us  at  once  most 
pleasant  and  most  effective  ;  for  the  monarchs  of 
eloquence  are  not  always  seated  on  the  high  and 
ornate  throne,  and  we  have  often  to  remember  that 
the  occupant  of  a  throne  in  a  little  state,  while  he 
is  as  powerful  in  his  own  realm,  is  often  more 
charming  than  the  sceptred  autocrat  of  a  boundless 
empire. 

But  it  has  often  been  said  that  a  serious  defect 
in  the  pulpit  method  of  our  day  is,  that  it  does  not 
present  vivid  paintings  ;  in  this  singularly  unlike  our 


470      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

old  monkish  and  mediaeval  friends.  Colouring  is 
not  sketching,  and  many  persons  in  public  foolishly 
suppose  that  the  laying  on  the  canvas  of  glaring 
colours  charms  and  delights.  Even  if  it  did  this, 
still  the  question  would  remain,  What  is  the  use  of 
it .''  But,  indeed,  a  very  vivid  picture  may  be  pre- 
sented to  the  eye  without  any  commingling  of 
colours.  Mere  colours  can  never  interest  except 
for  scientific  purposes,  or  ultimate  uses.  One  great 
object  of  the  preacher  should  be  to  interest  his 
audience ;  not  merely  to  win  their  attention,  not 
merely  to  win  their  heart,  but  to  hold  their  intellec- 
tual and  moral  nature  captive.  In  all  ages  and 
countries  men  have  agreed  that  this  is  an  object 
best  effected  by  narrative.  The  power  of  parable 
is  very  great,  and  parable  and  proverb  have  ever 
been  closely  allied  together ;  indeed,  are,  and  have 
been  almost  identical  in  their  signification.  There 
is  nothing  that  can  interest  the  human  heart  or 
human  understanding  of  which  the  preacher  may 
not  avail  himself.  Dramatic  composition  is  held 
to  be  the  highest  and  most  difficult  style  of  litera- 
ture ;  it  includes  every  style ;  it  uncurtains  the 
human  heart ;  it  sweeps  along  on  the  clouds  of 
descriptive  imagery  ;  it  is  narrative,  and  by  pathos 
and  by  smiles  can  rivet  human  sympathies ;  it 
includes  wit  and  humour,  as  it  paints  age  follies,  or 
launches  shafts  of  scorn  upon  its  vices ;  it  lays 
language  under  contribution,  and  by  the  nervous 
fibres  of  speech,  it  is  at  once  sensitive  and  strong ; 
and  then,  to  crown  all,  it  inflates  the  whole  with 
the  actor's  mighty  breath  and  vehemency  of  feeling. 
Now,    in    all    this,    we    have    mentioned    no    single 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  471 

particular  unsuited  to  the  pulpit ;  nay,  these  are  the 
characteristics  needed  for  the  pulpit.  The  preacher 
should  be  a  dramatist  ;  he  fails  in  effect  merely  by 
aiming  at  that  which  is  more  difficult.  If  he  would 
unaffectedly  describe  a  scene  in  a  cottage,  if  he 
would  particularise  some  incident  from  a  bed- 
chamber, or  a  parlour,  from  a  workshop,  or  a  garden, 
or  a  corn-field,  from  a  factory,  or  a  workhouse,  he 
would  win  more  attention  than  by  lingering  long 
over  some  abstract  proposition,  and,  in  attempting 
to  put  it  before  a  congregation,  winning  for  himself 
a  character  for  learned  dulness. 

We  have  heard  how  Jonathan  Edwards  first  had 
his  attention  directed  to  the  importance  of  style  in 
the  pulpit.  That  stern,  granitic  genius,  than  whom 
no  man  ever  seemed  farther  away  from  the  floral 
wreaths  of  fancy  and  the  pictures  of  poetry,  read 
Richardson's  pages,  and  they  convinced  him  that 
it  was  necessary  to  be  careful,  not  merely  for  the 
truth,  but  for  the  style  in  which  the  truth  is  pre- 
sented; not  merely  for  the  diamond,  but  the  setting; 
not  merely  for  the  painting,  but  for  the  frame.  We 
think  what  Jonathan  Edwards  did  not  disdain  to 
do,  inferior  preachers  may  study  a  little.  The 
novelists  !  Look  at  the  writings  of  Bulwer,  espe- 
cially "  The  Caxtons  "  and  "  My  Novel."  Look  at 
the  writings  of  Dickens,  especially  "  Bleak  House " 
and  the  "  Old  Curiosity  Shop."  Don't  tell  us  they 
are  novels.  We  know  they  are  called  so,  and  we 
know  you  read  them.  Now  close  them,  and  tell  us 
how  it  is  that  books  like  these  have  an  audience  so 
vast  and  wonderful.  Our  impression  is  that  we 
might  carry  the  method  of  the  parable,  the  vivacity 


472      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

of  narrative  and  dialogue,  into  the  pulpit — put  our 
great  truth  into  a  form  in  which  the  multitudes 
may  apprehend  it. 

In  reply  to  all  which,  it  will  be  said,  "  You  set 
your  standard  every  way  too  high.  In  the  first  place 
consider,"  it  will  be  replied,  "  that  the  inventiveness 
of  genius  which  can  construct  parables,  and  invest 
abstract  principles  with  the  attractive  graces  of 
narrative,  is  very  rare  ;  in  the  next  place,  remember 
that  the  people  are  not  usually  far  in  advance.  Do 
not  attempt  too  much,  or  all  good  designs  will  prove 
abortive."  Replying  to  the  last  item  first.  Medio- 
crity, it  is  most  true,  is  the  characteristic  of  the 
multitudes,  yet  "  the  common  people  heard  Christ 
gladly,"  because  He  spoke  in  pictures,  and  adaptation 
should  be  the  study  of  the  preacher ;  his  aim  should 
be  to  present  something  for  every  mind  and  taste, 
and  if  he  be  fitted  for  his  station,  he  will  be  able 
to  do  it. 

It  is  also  true  we  have  no  right  to  expect  more 
than  respectable  mediocrity  in  most  ministers.  We 
have  no  right  to  expect  great  fancy,  great  imagi- 
nation, great  profundity,  or  great  breadth.  Well, 
we  will  now  venture  to  give  utterance  to  what  will 
seem  to  many  a  piece  of  moral  delinquency.  Let 
the  minister  who  feels  his  own  deficiency,  who  longs 
to  present  clear  pictures  before  his  people,  but  finds 
his  mental  inability,  study  to  become  an  accom- 
plished thief;  let  him  study  well  the  beautiful  fables 
of  Krummacher  and  Lessing,  and  ponder  well  the 
delightful  verses  of  glorious  George  Herbert.  He 
will  most  likely  be  able  to  translate  from  their  easy 
Latin  the  "  Sentences  "  of  St.  Bernard.     All  of  these 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  473 

are  richly  suggestive.  Surely  he  knows  that  noble 
old  folio,  "  Adams  on  Peter,"  full  of  quaint  sugges- 
tion, allegoric  allusion,  and  practical  application. 
To  mediocrity  we  would  say,  Never  mind  Jeremy 
Taylor,  never  mind  Burke  ;  their  gorgeousness  and 
learned  allusion  will  be  useless  to  you  and  to  your 
audiences.  Stick  to  Adams  on  Peter,  and  his  volumes 
of  sermons  ;  he  will  do  you  and  yours  more  good 
than  South  or  Barrow,  and  infinitely  more  good 
than  Robert  Hall,  or  Dr.  M'All.  You  will  obtain 
pictures  and  ideas  which  will  stick  upon  the 
memories  of  your  villagers,  and  lead  you  away  into 
many  another  analogy  which  shall  be  wholly  yours. 
Elnathan  Parr  is  another  of  those  old  writers  whose 
fulness  informs  minds  that  desire  piously  to  present 
a  truth  which  yet  they  cannot  altogether  beat  out. 
Arrowsmith  is  a  writer  capable  of  instructing  all, 
and  his  method  and  his  figures  are  very  pertinent 
and  suggestive,  while  John  Smith  of  Essex  (not  of 
Cambridge — he  is  a  man  of  another  mark)  will 
supply  any  ordinary  preacher  with  parables  for  a 
lifetime.  Yes,  there  are  many  men  to  whom  we 
should  say,  Be  accomplished  thieves  ;  to  know  how 
to  steal  gold,  and  work  it  up  into  jewels,  is  only 
second  to  the  art  of  digging  the  gold  from  the  vast 
mines  of  thought.  The  humble  preacher  who  seeks 
only  to  enlighten  his  own  audience,  whose  sermon 
uttered  is  done  with,  may  use  materials  which  he 
must  not  use  who  occupies  such  a  position  that  all 
his  words  are  regarded  as  absolutely  his  own,  and 
who  perhaps  carries  to  the  press  the  words  spoken 
on  the  Sabbath. 

Suppose,  then,  we  had   the  advent  of  a  Gough 


474      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

into  our  English  pulpits.  What  would  that  do  for 
religion  and  the  Churches  ?  In  the  first  place,  we 
have  to  say  we  are  not  pleading  for  any  abnormal, 
excited,  and  spasmodic  action.  We  want  a  course 
of  teaching  sustained,  dignified,  and  influential.  We 
travelled  two  hundred  miles  on  purpose  to  hear 
John  Gough,  and  we  heard  him — and  heard  him  to 
advantage — heard  him  repeat  all  the  good  things 
we  had  read  twenty  times  before.  By  all  fairness 
of  criticism  he  must  be  tried  by  a  very  high  standard. 
Who  ever  before  achieved  such  a  fame  as  he  in  the 
most  intelligent  and  cautious  nation  on  the  earth,  in 
the  most  intelligent  age  t  He  has  in  every  town 
spoken  to  thousands  of  persons,  the  charges  for 
admission  being  as  high  as  to  the  most  respectable 
theatres.  If  the  greatness  of  the  audience  be  any 
test  of  the  greatness  of  the  man,  then  John  Gough 
is  one  of  the  most  eminent  orators  the  world  has 
seen  since  the  days  of  Whitefield.*  We  speak  in  no 
captiousness,  in  no  unkindness.  We  are  thankful 
for  all  the  truth  our  orator  has  spoken  in  our  country 
to  so  many — perhaps  we  are  not  exaggerating  when 
we  say — millions  of  people.  Still,  our  inquiry  now 
is  with  this  as  a  method  of  public  teaching,  and  it 
is  obvious,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  discourses  of 
Mr.  Gough  are  merely  recitations.  If  during  his 
residence  in  England  he  has  spoken  five  hundred 
times,  it  is  certain  that  he  has  not  given  a  dozen 
separate  lectures;  they  merit  the  character  of  power- 
fully acted,  and  telling  anecdotes.     What  has  most 


*  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  that  this  was  written  long  before 
the  popular  temperance  orator  had  entered  into  his  rest. 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE,  475 

amazed  us,  after  the  most  amazing  fact  that  a  man 
with  his  heart  fully  alive  to  his  subject,  and  feeling 
its  importance  deeply,  which  we  do  not  for  one 
moment  doubt,  but  most  cordially  and  thoroughly 
believe,  should  be  able  to  repeat — again,  and  again, 
and  again,  for  probably  thousands  of  times — the 
same  stories,  without  serious  deterioration  to  his 
whole  moral  nature — after  this  we  are  amazed  at 
the  absence  of  all  spontaneity — that  such  an  im- 
pulsive nature  as  an  actor's  may  be  supposed  to  be, 
with  language  at  command,  should  never  find  it 
surging  or  heaving  for  utterance  before  those  mighty 
and  magnificent  audiences  who  have  hung  for  hours 
on  his  lips  ;  and  we  have  been  amazed  too  at  the 
absence  of  all  the  higher  forms  of  power  for  which 
the  greatest  orators  have  ever  held  a  reputation,  and 
which  so  especially  distinguish  our  own  speakers — • 
Brougham,  Lyndhurst,  Canning,  George  Thompson, 
William  Fox,  Thomas  Binney,  James  Parsons. 
With  any  of  these  great  speakers  how  preposterous 
would  be  the  comparison  of  John  Gough !  All 
circumstances  being  equal,  let  us  select  any  one  of 
these,  and  let  the  two  speak  together,  Gough  reciting 
one  of  his  old  melodramas,  and  it  is  possible  that  his 
might  be  the  palm  of  praise,  though  we  doubt  even 
this  under  such  circumstances  ;  but  let  him  stand 
by  the  side  of  any  one  of  these  men  to  pronounce  a 
new  oration,  or  an  impromptu  speech,  and  there  is 
not  one  before  whom  his  fame  would  not  be 
shrivelled,  and  parched  up  like  a  scroll :  and  surely 
variety,  adaptation,  and  impromptu  power  are  among 
the  tests  of  popular  oratory  ?  No  wit,  no  imagina- 
tion, no  flow  of  eloquent  words,  no  power  even  of 


476      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

verbal  painting, — it  is  incessant,  and  most  exagge- 
rated action.  We  have  no  objection  to  action, —  we 
would  that,  in  its  proper  degree,  we  had  more  of  it ; 
but  the  true  orator  will  not  only  have  his  moods  of 
vehement  physical  action,  he  will  also  have  his  moods 
of  mighty  passion,  when,  like  the  air  before  the 
thunderstorm,  a  profound  silence  will  presage  the 
tempest — when  the  leaves  will  scarcely  seem  to  stir 
— when,  like  himself,  the  audience  will  feel  the  stifling 
heat  of  suppressed  sensations,  and  know  that  the 
hushed  and  subdued  manner  is  indeed  the  prelude 
and  promise  of  swift,  arrowy  lightnings,  and  crashing, 
fiery  bolts. 

It  is  true  that  "  action  is  eloquence,"  but  not 
always  ;  silence  is  eloquence,  but  not  always  ;  but 
feeling  is  always  eloquence.  Mighty  effects  have  ere 
now  been  produced  in  pulpit  and  on  platform  by  a 
subdued  manner.  It  has  been  usual  to  commend 
action  for  effects  which  in  fact  were  the  result  of 
feelings  which  gave  vitality  to  the  action.  Coleridge 
remarks,  "  Schiller  has  the  material  sublime  to  pro- 
duce an  effect :  he  sets  you  a  whole  town  on  fire, 
and  throws  infants  with  their  mothers  into  the 
flames,  or  locks  up  a  father  in  an  old  tower ;  but 
Shakespeare  drops  a  handkerchief,  and  the  same  or 
greater  effects  follow."*  May  we  not  say  indeed,  that, 
in  proportion  as  the  orator  has  occasion  to  tax  physical 
energies  to  give  effect  to  his  words,  his  words  are  defi- 
cient in  the  true  Divine  afflatus  and  breath }  Well, 
we  do  not  dogmatically  assert  this,  but  it  is  true,  with 
some  slight   reservation.     A  truly  wonderful  orator, 

*  "  Table  Talk." 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  477 

as  we  have  seen,  was  the  great  Jonathan  Edwards  ! 
It  seems  difficult  to  conceive  it,  but  he  was  an 
orator  beyond  any  we  have  ever,  perhaps,  heard 
speak.  He  stood  motionless  in  the  pulpit,  resting 
upon  it  the  arm  whose  hand  held  the  little  manu- 
script book  close  to  his  eyes,  while  the  other  made 
the  few  gestures  in  which  he  ventured  to  indulge  ; 
but  he  could  keep  an  audience,  assembled  to  hear 
a  morning  sermon,  rapt  and  unconscious,  until  the 
rays  of  the  setting  sun  streamed  through  the  church 
windows.  Wonderful,  as  we  have  elsewhere  said,  are 
the  instances  related  of  his  power.  Cold  indifferent- 
ism  was  roused  from  its  careless  apathy  when  he 
preached.  Once,  on  being  requested  to  discourse  at 
Enfield,  U.S.,  where  he  was  a  stranger,  to  an  assembly 
so  indifferent  to  religion  as  to  be  even  regardless  of 
the  decency  of  silence  during  his  prayer,  he  had  not 
half  finished  his  sermon  before  the  startled  sinners, 
having  already  passed  through  the  valley  of  silence, 
began  to  wail  and  weep  so  bitterly  that  he  could  not 
go  on  for  their  distress.  "  These,"  says  Rufus  Gris- 
wold,  "  are  triumphs  of  eloquence  not  dreamed  of  by 
such  as  deem  themselves  masters  of  the  art  from 
reading  the  foolish  recipe  ascribed  to  Demosthenes." 
George  Gilfillan  says  of  this  great  man,  "  He 
reminded  you  of  Milton's  line, — 

"  *  The  ground  bums  frore. 

And  cold  performs  the  efifect  of  fire.* 

A  signal  instance  of  this  is  recorded.  A  large  con- 
gregation, including  many  ministers,  were  assembled 
to  hear  a  popular  preacher,  who  did  not  fulfil  his 
appointment.  Edwards  was  selected  to  fill  his  place, 
principally  because,  being  in  the  habit  of  reading  his 


478      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

discourses,  he  happened  to  have  a  sermon  ready  in  his 
pocket.  He  ascended  the  pulpit  accordingly,  amid 
almost  audible  marks  of  disappointment  from  the 
audience,  whom,  however,  respect  for  the  abilities  and 
character  of  the  preacher  prevented  from  leaving  the 
church.  He  chose  for  his  text,  'Their  foot  shall  slide 
in  due  time,*  and  began  to  read  in  his  usual  quiet  way. 
At  first  he  had  barely  their  attention  ;  by-and  bye  he 
succeeded  in  riveting  every  one  of  them  to  his  lips  ; 
a  few  sentences  more,  and  they  began  to  rise  by 
twos  and  threes ;  a  little  farther,^  and  tears  were 
flowing ;  at  the  close  of  another,  particular  deep 
groans  were  heard,  and  one  or  two  went  off  in  fits  ; 
and  ere  he  reached  the  climax  of  his  terrible  appeals, 
the  whole  audience  had  risen  up  in  one  tumult  of 
grief  and  consternation.  And,  amid  all  this,  there 
stood  the  calm,  imperturbable  man,  reading  on  as 
softly  and  gently  as  if  he  were  in  his  own  study. 
And,  in  reading  the  sermon,  we  do  not  wonder  at 
the  impression  it  produced  upon  an  audience  consti- 
tuted as  that  audience  must  have  been.  It  is  a 
succession  of  swift  thunder-claps,  each  drowning  and 
deafening  the  one  which  preceded  it.  We  read  it 
once  to  a  distinguished  savant,  who,  while  dis- 
approving of  its  spirit,  was  compelled,  literally,  to 
shiver  under  the  '  fury  of  its  power.'"  * 

But  we  may  be  sure  of  one  thing  :  in  Edwards, 
if  there  were  no  action,  there  was  feeling.  Action 
is  as  often  the  simulation  of  feeling  as  the  reality  of 
it ;  but  where  there  is  neither  reality  nor  simulation, 
there  will   be  no  effect.      Carry  ice  to  ice,   and  ice 

*  "  Sketches  of  Modern  Literature  and  Eminent  Literary 
Men."     London,  1845. 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE,  479 

remains  ;  but  if  you  rub  even  ice  against  ice,  the 
friction  will  produce  heat :  so  sometimes  a  cold  soul 
in  a  heated  body  has  roused  other  cold  souls  ;  but 
without  heat  of  some  kind  never  yet  did  any  mortal 
kindle  a  hearer.  And  Gough  has  dropped  two  or 
three  hints  which  ought  not  to  be  thrown  away  upon 
us.  He  has  shown  to  us  the  force  of  physical 
earnestness  ;  he  has  shown  to  us  the  power  of  narra- 
tive and  anecdote.  We  have  no  fault  to  find  on  the 
score  of  bad  taste,  bad  grammar,  or  any  other  of  the 
bad  things  which  are  of  an  inferior  order  in  influenc- 
ing the  public  mind  :  let  all  these  go.  It  is  true, 
we  think,  that  we  have  had  in  England,  for  many 
years,  many  men  who  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
speaking  quite  as  well  as  John  Gough  on  the  same 
subject,  and,  all  circumstances  considered,  perhaps 
very  much  better.  In  looking  at  him  we  can  learn 
how  impossible  it  is  to  convey  adequate  ideas  of 
living  and  speaking  orators  to  future  ages.  Actors 
and  orators  "die  and  make  no  sign."  Gough  is 
Whitefield  reft  of  his  inspiration.  Were  he  inspired 
more,  he  would  act  less.  We  heard  him,  and  cer- 
tainly he  never  made  us  shiver  nor  shudder.  We 
followed  the  butterfly  up  Vesuvius  ;  it  was  admirably 
done.  We  saw  the  boat  go  over  the  rapids  of 
Niagara — the  ripple  and  the  roar  of  the  mighty 
hurricane  of  waters — the  shout  from  the  banks — the 
flow  of  the  mighty  tide  of  death  !  We  greatly 
admired  the  whole  scene.  The  terrible  struggle  of 
the  poor  spell-bound  spirit  pawing  his  hands  to  keep 
off  the  demons  in  delirium  tremens.  It  was  very 
effective  and  scenic,  but  what  detracted  from  it  was 
that  we  knew  it  all  before.      Everything  said  com- 


48o      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

mended  itself  to  us.  Many  of  the  strokes  were  very 
powerful,  but  nothing  appeared  to  us  of  a  high  cast 
of  oratory.  We  have  known,  while  listening,  the 
shiver  and  the  shudder,  the  creeping  of  the  blood  and 
the  tingling  of  the  nerves,  the  swaying  of  the  senses 
and  the  blood,  the  boiling  of  the  brain  and  the  heart, 
but  we  sat  unmoved  while  our  actor  was  striding  to 
and  fro  ;  and  mentally  we  had  resolved  that  how- 
ever taking  the  style  might  be,  for  ultimate  efficiency 
nothing  could  be  conceived  more  useless  than  the 
style  of  John  Gough. 

We  knew  one  man,  a  most  Socratic  teacher — we 
wish  we  could  say  we  knew  many  such,  but  we  only 
knew  one.  Everybody  loved  him,  but  nobody 
suspected  that  he  was  great.  He  seemed  to  reach 
celestial  goodness  without  labouring  along  the  trani- 
road  of  the  intellect.  We  think  nature  gave  him 
little  besides  an  overflowing  heart,  but  God  poured 
into  the  fulness  of  this  overflowing  heart  a  wonderful 
portion  of  His  own  Spirit.  All  this,  and,  perhaps, 
nothing  more  !  Yet  it  is  very  astonishing  what 
power  there  was  in  his  words,  and  the  words  were 
always  flowing — flow,  flow,  flow,  always  flowing ; 
they  had  no  richness,  no  arrangement,  no  mental 
method,  but  they  were  always  flowing — as  freely  in 
the  street  talking  with  a  poor  old  woman  as  on  the 
platform, — as  freely  in  the  cottage,  beneath  the 
shade  of  domestic  sorrow,  or  the  light  of  domestic 
joy,  as  in  the  pulpit.  This  man  did  not  think  that 
best  words  should  be  kept  for  best  occasions.  He 
used  fitting  words  on  fitting  occasions,  and  used  them 
without  an  effort ;  and  we  must  say,  spite  of  all  the 
talk  of  profound  preparation,  that  the  discourse  must 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  481 

be  greatest  that  leaps  unbidden  to  the  lips,  and  starts 
forth  without  effort.  He  had  travelled  much  in 
many  kingdoms,  and  parts  of  the  world,  and  there 
are  few  towns  in  England  in  which  he  has  not 
preached  ;  and  we  think  he  never  spoke  without 
opening  the  great  fountains  of  tears  ; — but  what  we 
marvel  at  is  that  this  constant  play  on  the  fountains 
of  tears  never  marred  the  innocence  and  simplicity 
of  his  own  nature.  He  was  as  natural  as  a  flower, 
or  a  child.  Some  people  said,  "  Ah !  but  how 
simple  he  is  ! "  Would  to  God  that  all  the  Lord's 
people  were  simple  !  We  are  sadly  afraid  that  is  a 
fault  that  will  never  be  laid  at  your  door,  or  ours, 
brother.  And  then  he  was  as  wise  as  a  serpent, 
too,  with  all  his  simplicity — a  very  frequent  com- 
bination, that  of  great  shrewdness  with  great  open- 
heartedness.  Now  we  will  tell  our  readers  how  he 
preached.     They  shall  hear  two  or  three  sermons  : — 

He  was  walking  on  the  banks  of  a  canal,  and  a 
boat  had  been  dragging  wearily  along,  and  now  for 
some  reason  was  stopping. 

"Good-morning,"  said  our  friend  to  the  bargeman. 
Good-morning."  (A  rather  gruff  reply.)  "  Well, 
to-morrow  will  be  Sunday — a  day  of  rest  for  you. 
I  suppose  you  don't  work  Sundays,  do  you  ? " 
"  No  !  hang  it  all  !  we  work  hard  enough,  but  not 
quite  so  bad  as  that."  "  Ah,  well,  I'm  glad  to  hear 
it.  You  have  a  little  rest.  You  read  a  little,  now — 
the  New  Testament,  I  should  think  "i  "  "  No  ;  can't 
say  as  I  do.  I  reads  the  newspaper  a  bit."  "  Well, 
the  newspaper  is  very  interesting,  isn't  it  ^  And 
what  do  you  like  best  in  it .?  "  "  Oh  !  I  looks  over 
it  all.     I  like  to  see  how  things  go  on  everywhere 

31 


482      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

a  bit.  There's  the  Duke  of  Welhngton's  dead,  and 
heaps  o'  things."  "Well,  now,  my  friend,  do  you 
know  I  know  you,  and  I  have  formed  a  bad  opinion 
of  you  ? "  "  Well,  what  for  ?  I  don't  know  that 
I  care  much  about  it,  though."  "  Why,  because 
you've  behaved  badly  to  your  Father.  Now,  not  to 
say  any  more,  there's  the  letter  your  Father  wrote 
to  you,  and  you've  never  opened  it  and  never  read 
it."  "  Well,  I  don't  know  who  you  be  ;  but  that's 
a  lie,  anyhow.  Why,  I  never  had  but  one  letter 
from  the  old  man,  and  I  read  that  ever  so  carefully. 
I  couldn't  spell  it  very  well,  but  I  made  it  out  ; 
and  I  got  the  old  man's  letter  now."  "  I  can't  help 
what  you  say,  my  friend.  I  say  you've  treated  your 
Father  badly — never  read  His  letter,  and  such  an 
important  letter,  too  !  "  "  Well,  I  don't  know  who 
you  be,  and  I'm  sure  you  don't  know  who  I  be 
if  you  say  1  treated  Father  badly.  Why,  I  looked 
after  the  old  man  as  long  as  he  lived,  and  I  tried 
to  do  my  duty  to  him."  "Ah!  my  friend,  I'll  tell 
you.  God's  your  Father,  and  the  New  Testament 
is  God's  letter  to  you  ;  and  here  you  tell  me  you 
spend  Sunday  in  reading  newspapers,  full  of  things 
in  which  you  are  not  at  all  interested,  and  neglecting 
the  New  Testament,  so  full  of  all  that  must  do 
you  good.  Think  of  your  Father's  letter.  Shake 
hands.  Good-morning.  Don't  forget  your  Father's 
letter." 

Another  time  he  was  walking  down  the  streets  of 
a  city.  He  heard  a  man  swearing  very  badly  ;  he 
stopped,  took  a  little  book  from  his  pocket,  went  up 
to  the  man  : — 

"  My  friend,  will  you  have  a  little  book  ? "     "  No  ; 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  483 

I've  got  no  money  for  books."  "  But  I'll  give  it 
you,  if  you'll  accept  it.""  "  Oh !  well,  I  don't  mind, 
then."  "  Is  that  your  wife  .?  "  "  Yes."  "  Will  you 
allow  me  to  give  her  a  little  book  ? "  "  Why,  you're 
very  good  ;  yes,  if  you  like."  "  And  have  you  got 
any  children  .?  "  "  Yes  ;  two."  "  Now  I  should  like 
to'  give  you  a  book  each  for  them."  "  Well,  it's 
very  kind  of  you  !  What  are  you  giving  away  these 
books  like  this  for.?"  "Why,  I'll  tell  you:  it's 
because  I  heard  you  speaking  very  shamefully  to 
a  Friend  of  mine."  "  Come,  master  ;  you're  wrong 
there — I  don't  know  any  friend  of  yours."  "  Ah ! 
perhaps  not  ;  but  you  spoke  very  badly  to  Him  !  " 
"  Well,  I  don't  believe  it  I  "  "  Why,  God  is  my 
Friend — the  loving  God  ;  and  you  were  calling  on 
Him  just  now  to  damn  you,  and  to  damn  your  wife. 
God  is  my  Friend.  Now,  I'm  going  to  ask  you  to 
do  something."  "  What's  that .?  "  "  Try  not  to 
swear  again."  "  Lor'  bless  you  !  it's  no  use  tryin'. 
Bless  you,  I  couldn't  leave  off,  nohow."  "  Try — ■ 
come,  try  to  leave  off  swearing."  After  a  time  he 
said,  "  Well,  I'll  try."  "  That  is  right  ;  now,  remem- 
ber, there  are  four  witnesses — me,  your  wife,  your 
heart,  and  our  Friend  !  Shake  hands.  Good- 
morning  !  " 

Another  time,  staying  in  a  town  for  a  few  days,  a 
gentleman  said,  "  We  have  a  number  of  Irish  here, 
and  we  have  Irish  Testaments,  but  we  cannot  get  at 
them  to  distribute  ;  now  do  you  come  with  us,  and 
try  and  preach."  So  they  went,  but  it  seemed  they 
were  likely  to  go  in  vain.  The  Irish  were  a  rough 
race,  and  they  wouldn't  hear  a  word.  "  Qhat  do  you 
mane,"  they  said,  "  be  comin'  to  the  likes  00  uz  ?      Go 


484      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

and  prache  to  your  own  ;  they  want  it  bad  enuf,  and 
bad  luck  to  you  !  " 

Another  said,  "  Now,  if  the  gentleman's  got  a 
showl  in  him,  he'll  go  up  and  see  poor  Katie  Donovan; 
shure  she's  lost  her  man  entirely."  So  upstairs  he 
went,  and  said  a  good  word  to  the  poor  widow,  and 
gave  her  a  shilling.  Presently  he  came  back  again, 
and  it  had  got  wind  about  that  he  had  been  kind  to 
poor  Katie  ;  and  he  tried  to  speak,  and  was  very 
likely  to  get  a  hearing,  when  one,  more  pertinacious 
than  the  rest,  shouted  out,  "  If  we  hear  ye  spake 
now,  sure,  can  ye  tell  us  what  was  the  first  word  that 
Adam  ever  spoke  .-• "  "  Well,"  said  our  cunning 
friend,  "  perhaps  I  can  tell  you  that  too,  if  ye'll  wait 
a  bit.  Wouldn't  it  be  '  Erin  go  bragh  '  "i  "  said  he. 
"  Hear  him — hear  him  !  "  said  they:  "this  is  the  rt£-k^ 
potato — this  is  a  broth  of  a  boy  !  Sure  he's  Irish 
altogether ! "  "  Now,"  said  our  friend  to  the  man 
who  had  been  most  annoying,  "can  you  read  Irish?" 
"Shure  he  could  do  that,  anyhow  !"  "Would  he  read 
a  bit  of  real  illegant  Irish  ?  "  "  Yes  !  "  And  so  our 
friend  inveigled  him  into  reading  a  chapter  from 
the  New  Testament,  which  he  expounded  to  them 
when  the  reading  was  over.  Do  our  readers  inquire 
who  was  this  Socratic  talker .?  It  was  the  simple, 
unintellectual,  tear-compelling  Richard  Knill. 

And  his  is  a  power  to  be  envied — this  easy  home- 
liness of  manner  :  all  admire  it,  but  few  possess  it. 
Yet  this  is  the  most  useful  gift.  We  dare  venture 
to  say  that  a  man  who  has  this  vital,  and  organic, 
and  unstudied  aptitude  constantly  about,  and  in  him, 
will  achieve  more  than  the  greatest  masters  of  rhe- 
toric ;  indeed,  rhetoric  in  its  highest  forms  is  only  an 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  485 


attempt  to  reach  this — this  power  to  leave  an  im- 
pressive word  on  the  memory,  and  to  speak  such  a 
word  in  the  faith  that  it  does  contain  the  elements 
of  real  power — power  to  arouse  consciousness — power 
to  produce  conviction — power  to  re-create  the  whole 
character.      Nor  are  such   men  unfitted  to  deal  with 
a  higher  order  of  mind  ;   for  they  possess  a  principle 
of  instinctive  adaptation.      Sympathy  is  instinctive  in 
its   law,  and    in    its  operation  ;  it  finds  its  way  by 
stretching  out  its  feelers ;  for  it  is  all  eye,  all  touch, 
because   all   heart  ;    while    that    bright    intelligence, 
which  we  expect  to  do  so  much,  is  often  horny-eyed 
because  horny-hearted.     It  may  be  difficult  to  address 
great  multitudes  of  persons  on  some  ordinary  topic 
in  an  ordinary  manner ;  it  is  still   more  difficult  to 
address  children,  or  simple  and   lowly  natures  ;  but 
the  most  difficult  thing  is  to  address  all  people  at  all 
times,  in  streets,  in  lanes,  and   in  cottages  ;  and  the 
man  who  can  do  this  efficiently  is  a  model  preacher. 
This  is,  perhaps,  what  the  apostle  meant  when  he 
spoke  of  the  word  of  wisdom  in  the  teacher. 

Among  the  lesser-known  essays  and  remains  of 
Robert  Hall  is  a  memoir  of  Thomas  Toller,  of 
Kettering,  a  piece  characterised  by  Mr.  Hall's  beauty 
of  language,  but,  we  have  always  thought,  more 
remarkable  for  the  discriminative  contrast  he  draws 
between  two  men,  of  whom  he  says,  "  It  has  rarely 
been  the  privilege  of  one  town,  and  that  not  of  con- 
siderable extent,  to  possess  at  the  same  timiC,  and  for 
so  long  a  period,  two  such  eminent  men  as  Thomas 
Toller  and  Andrew  Fuller ;  "  and  the  contrast  he 
draws  between  these  two  contemporaneous  ministers 
is  not  only  very   graphic,    but,   more  than  that,   it 


486      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

suggests  in  a  very  pleasing  manner  the  great  varieties 
of  ministerial  character  and  usefulness.  The  men 
were  both  very  eminent,  and  equally  eminent,  in 
their  different  orders  ;  but,  while  Mr.  Toller  devoted 
himself  to  those  aspects  of  Christian  truth  which 
come  more  in  contact  with  the  imagination  and  the 
feelings,  exerting  a  sovereign  ascendency  over  these 
emotional  parts  of  our  nature,  Mr.  Fuller  attempted 
to  examine  with  microscopic  accuracy  the  separating 
boundary  lines  of  truth  and  error.  Hence,  Mr. 
Toller  overwhelmed  his  hearers  with  his  pathos, — 
Mr.  Fuller  bore  them  away  by  his  arguments  : 
in  listening  to  the  one  man,  one  feels  one's  self  in  the 
grasp  of  a  strong  intellect  ;  listening  to  the  other, 
we  feel  ourselves  irresistibly  yielding  to  the  contagion 
of  his  sensibility.  Beneath  Andrew  Fuller  one  was 
compelled  to  listen  to  trains  of  thought  ;  beneath 
Thomas  Toller  we  were  compelled  to  trains  of 
emotion.  Both  men  were  fertile  in  illustration  ; 
Mr.  Fuller's  was  employed  for  the  more  practical 
comprehension  of  the  subject,  Mr.  Toller's  for  the 
purpose  of  moving  the  affections.  Andrew  Fuller 
employed  himself  most  in  searching  out  the  subter- 
fuges of  hypocrisy,  and  exposing  fallacious  pretensions 
of  religion  ;  he  ranged  round  the  terrific  region  of 
Sinai,  or  "sat  as  a  refiner's  fire  ;" — Mr.  Toller  never 
got  out  of  sight  of  Calvary,  and  the  august  Sufferer 
there  ;  he  was  most  in  his  element  when  exhibiting 
the  consolations  of  Christ,  when  dispelling  the  fears 
of  death,  and  unveiling  the  prospects  of  eternity. 
Andrew  Fuller  was  what  we  call  a  public  man,  a 
practical  man,  ready  for  all  visitation  and  converse 
at  any  time  ; — Mr.  Toller  had  a  relish  for  society, 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  487 

and  shone  in  it,  but  it  had  to  be  of  his  own  order, 
and  where  he  could  feel  that  he  was  perfectly  at 
home;  he  would  not  devote  much  time  to  ministerial 
visits  ;  he  had  a  natural  delicacy  and  reserve,  which 
led  him  even  to  quote  the  language  of  the  apostle 
as  the  justification  of  his  conduct, — "  Is  any  sick 
among  you  ?  let  him  call  for  the  elders  of  the 
Church."  Thus  Andrew  Fuller  lived  for  the  world, 
Thomas  Toller  for  his  congregation,  his  family, 
and  his  friends.  Mr.  Fuller  inferred  the  character 
of  men  from  their  creed  ;  Mr.  Toller  was  almost 
disposed  to  lose  sight  of  their  creed  in  their 
character.  What  a  charming  contrasted  parallel 
such  divergent,  and  divaricating  characters  afford  ! 
and  it  is  not  less  interesting  to  notice  that  Robert 
Hall,  the  friend  who  drew  the  delineations  of 
character,  certainly  united  in  himself  very  many  of 
the  best  attributes  of  both,  and  while,  no  doubt,  where 
his  character  diverged  it  leaned  over  to  that  of 
Thomas  Toller,  he  combined  in  a  larger  amplitude 
the  characters  of  each.  We  have  referred  to  it  here 
to  notice  it  as  singular  that  one  obscure  little  town 
should,  for  so  many  years,  have  retained  two  such 
remarkable  pulpit  lights  ;  at  the  same  time,  it  sug- 
gests how  various  pulpit  character  may  be,  and  as 
useful  as  various. 

Let  men  say  what  they  will,  when  the  throne 
is  set  on  the  great  white  cloud,  and  when  the  books 
are  opened,  it  is  from  the  ranks  of  the  ministry, 
through  all  the  ages  of  the  Church,  that  there  will 
be  called  forth  those  who  have  most  illustriously 
and  unselfishly  served  the  world  ;  let  the  minister 
magnify    his    office ;     it    is    to    be    feared    that    it 


488      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 


has  become  a  diminuendo  in  our  day,  and  it  seems 
that  it  has  Httle  opportunity  of  obtaining  significance 
unless  it  serve  on  boards  or  committees,  and  re- 
present the  ovations  of  wealth.  How  singular  that  the 
pastors  of  great  and  wealthy  Churches  are  seldom 
masters  in  the  pulpit,  and  have  not  attained  to  the 
splendours  of  the  throne.  Thomas  Lynch,  the  most 
seminal  preacher  of  our  time,  probably  never  spoke 
to  a  congregation  of  more  than  two  or  three  hundred  ; 
the  church  of  Frederick  Robertson,  the  man  whose 
words  have  gone  out  into  all  the  earth  and  to  the 
end  of  the  world,  was,  in  his  time,  a  poor  small 
building  in  an  out-of-the-way  corner  of  Brighton, 
not  equal  to  many  a  Primitive  Methodist  chapel. 
These  are  the  men  who  have  been  as  a  spectacle 
to  the  world,  to  men,  and  to  angels.  Oh,  we 
know  the  exceptions !  ambitious  popes,  cardinals, 
and  priests ;  wealthy  rectors,  who  have  wrapped 
themselves  in  the  robes  of  a  spiritual  office  that  they 
might  clutch  the  munificence  of  worldly  temporali- 
ties ;  but  what  are  these  ?  a  scantling  compared 
with  the  crowds  of  the  poor  unhonoured  labourers — 
the  real  cloud  of  witnesses.  We  know  what  is  a  poor 
book  of  biography  ;  but  Avhat  biographies  are  so 
interesting  as  ministerial  biographies .-'  Yes,  on  the 
whole, — on  the  whole, — these  are  they  who  have 
kept  the  moral  and  spiritual  instincts  of  the  world 
alive.  Catholic  priests,  Primitive  Methodist  ministers, 
Congregationalists  of  every  order,  Quakers,  preachers 
of  the  Society  of  Friends,  full  of  errors,  full  of  in- 
firmities ;  what  then  are  the  laity,  who  have 
reaped  the  world's  honours  and  wealth  t  Pieces 
of  Parian   loveliness,  and    Phydian  perfection ! — But 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  489 

those  were  the  men  who  jeopardised  their  lives  on 
the  high  places  of  the  field  ;  those  are  the  men 
who,  in  all  ages,  have  turned  the  world  upside 
down  ;  usually,  they  have  been,  especially  in  England, 
only  a  kind  of  superior,  privileged,  and  tolerated 
pauper  ;  scanty  the  income,  and,  often,  glowering  the 
official  who  paid  it,  but,  in  fact,  the  true  minister 
cannot  be  paid  ;  he  has  drawn  a  bill  in  faith  in 
the  morning  of  the  Resurrection  ;  he  believes  it 
will  be  honoured  then  ;  here,  and  there,  is  one  who 
has  fallen,  although  a  good  and  conscientious  man, 
on  what  seems  a  good  thing ;  that  is,  he  has 
eloquence,  wit,  and  tact  which,  had  they  been  em- 
ployed at  the  bar,  would  have  secured  him  perhaps 
twenty  or  thirty  thousand  a  year,  possibly  a  place 
in  the  peerage.  What  are  the  rewards  of  the  artist, 
of  the  physician,  of  the  merchant  ?  Think  of  Charles 
Kingsley  ;  think  of  Horace  Bushnell  ;  think  of  Lyman 
Beecher ;  think  of  Andrew  Reed  ;  think  of  James 
Parsons  ;  think  of  Robert  Hall  ;  think  of  Jonathan 
Edwards  ;  think  of  George  Herbert  ;  think  of  John 
Elliot ;  think  of  David  Brainerd  ;  think  of  Frederick 
Faber  ;  think  of  Thomas  Lynch  ;  think  of  William 
Channing ;  think  of  Thomas  Chalmers  ;  think  of 
Edward  Irving  ;  think  of  Frederick  Robertson  ;  think, 
think,  think  !  Oh,  we  are  compassed  about  by  a 
great  cloud  of  witnesses  !  Come,  barristers,  artists, 
merchants,  physicians,  unveil  your  heavens,  and  show 
to  us,  if  you  can,  so  great  a  throng  of  the  illustrious, 
the  existent,  although  invisible,  dead  !  Look  up ! 
Most  of  them  lived  the  lives  of  martyrs,  fighting  off, 
or  fighting  with  poverty  for  Christ's  sake.  Think  of 
the  varieties  of  ministerial  character  ;  think  of  the 


490      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

missionary  :  is  not  he  a  minister  ? — think  of  Living- 
stone, who  pushed  on  his  great  enterprises  for  Christ's 
sake  ;  for  what  was  his  motto  ?  "  The  end  of  the 
geographical  feat  is  the  beginning  of  the  missionary- 
enterprise  !  "  Think  of  Adoniram  Judson  ;  think  of 
his  great,  his  noble,  painful,  and  much-enduring 
life  !  We  like  to  read  an  extract  from  one  of  his 
letters  to  his  first  wife,  before  they  were  married, 
and  started  for  India.  "  What  a  great  change," 
he  writes,  "  will  this  year  probably  make  in  our  lives  ! 
How  very  different  will  be  our  situation  and  employ- 
ment !  If  our  lives  are  preserved,  and  our  attempt 
prospered,  we  shall,  next  New  Year's  Day,  be  in 
India,  and  perhaps  wish  each  other  a  happy  new 
year  in  the  uncouth  dialect  of  Hindoostan,  or 
Burmah.  We  shall  no  more  see  our  kind  friends 
around  us,  or  enjoy  the  conveniences  of  civilised  life, 
or  go  to  the  house  of  God  with  those  who  keep  holy- 
day  ;  but  swarthy  countenances  will  everywhere  meet 
our  eyes,  the  jargon  of  an  unknown  tongue  will 
meet  our  ears,  and  we  shall  witness  the  assembling 
of  the  heathen  to  worship  idol  gods.  We  shall  be 
weary  of  the  world,  and  wish  for  wings  like  a  dove 
that  we  may  fly  away  and  be  at  rest.  We  shall  pro- 
bably experience  seasons  when  we  shall  be  '  exceed- 
ing sorrowful,  even  unto  death.'  We  shall  know 
many  dreary  desolate  hours,  and  feel  a  sinking  of 
spirits,  anguish  of  mind,  of  which  now  we  can  form 
little  conception.  Oh,  we  shall  wish  to  lie  down 
and  die.  And  that  time  may  soon  come.  One  of 
us  may  be  unable  to  sustain  the  heat  of  the  climate, 
and  the  change  of  habits,  and  the  other  may  say 
with  literal  truth  over  the  grave : 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  491 

"  *  By  foreign  hands  thy  dying  eyes  were  closed, 
By  foreign  hands  thy  decent  limbs  composed, 
By  foreign  hands  thy  foreign  grave  adorned.' 

But  whether  we  shall  be  honoured  and  mourned 
by  strangers,  God  only  knows.  At  least  either  of 
us  will  be  certain  of  one  mourner."  We  know  it 
was  even  so  ;  the  letter  was  quite  a  prophecy. 
Judson  himself  died  years  after,  on  shipboard,  and 
lies  buried  beneath  the  deep  sea  wave  ;  he  had  even 
wished  that  it  should  be  so.  Seeking  recovery  from 
fever  on  the  ocean,  he  found  an  ocean  grave  !  No 
nobler  creature  of  God  lies  waiting  for  resurrection 
light  beneath  the  ocean  billow. 

"  Earth  shall  reclaim  her  precious  things  from  the&^ 
Restore  the  dead,  thou  sea !  " 

Do  we  wander  from  our  text  when  we  speak  of 
missionaries  as  furnishing  one  of  the  varieties  of 
ministerial  life  ?  Where  do  they  not  rest,  those 
missionaries  ?  Some  in  the  wilderness,  where  no 
man  passeth  by ;  some  in  the  forest,  in  some 
shady  spot,  beneath  a  tree,  whose  branches  bend 
over,  catching  the  winds  as  they  pass  whispering 
over  the  place  of  their  remains  ;  and  while  "  rain 
makes  music  in  the  tree,"  .singing  a  requiem  and  an 
elegy  over  the  remains  resting  so  far  away  from 
any  mourner's  tear.  Some  rest  in  the  burning 
tropics,  and  in  villages,  on  islands  locked  far  away 
in  the  Spanish  main. 

**  The  tamarind  tree  may  tell  their  story. 
While  an  eternity  of  glory 

Crowns  their  career; 
But  when  the  noontide  lustre  gilds  the  waves, 
It  shines,  without  a  shadow,  on  their  graves/*  > 


492      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


Where  rest  they  not  ?  Some  hang  up  high  in 
frozen  icebergs.  Years  ago,  a  ship  set  sail  from  one 
of  the  ports  of  Northern  Europe,  and  it  had  on 
board  a  Moravian  bishop  bound  for  Greenland  ;  and 
it  was  discovered  years  after,  when  surprise  had 
faded  away,  that  it  had  never  reached  its  destination, 
— it  had  been  caught  in  an  ice-drift,  borne  up  and 
embayed  there  ;  the  fangs  of  the  ice  had  caught  it, 
and  we  may  think  of  the  old  minister,  missionary, 
and  bishop  breathing  a  warm  blessing  through  the 
icy  air,  and  the  chilled  atmosphere  freezing  and 
fixing  him  there,  unsepulchred,  to  wail,  with  his 
comrade  crew,  for  the  upmounting  resurrection 
moment.  Where  rest  they  not  ?  Unhappy  they, 
if  they  alone  are  blessed  who  rest  in  earth  con- 
secrated by  the  priestly  prayer  and  orison,  as  there 
are  some  who  tell  us.  But  let  us  rather  say,  if  any- 
thing could  hallow,  beyond  the  breath  of  breeze 
and  the  song  of  birds,  the  sequestered  cemetery  of 
earth,  then  must  those  nooks  be  additionally 
hallowed  where  the  faithful,  self-denying,  and  much- 
enduring  missionary  slumbers  in  his  court  of  peace. 

But  the  reader  will  please  to  regard  this  as  an 
episode  to  the  main  text  on  the  variety  of  suggestive 
pictures  of  the  clerical  or  ministerial  life. 

If  space  permitted,  we  would  like  to  devote  more 
than  a  few  words  to  the  memory  of  Henry  Smith.* 
Never  shall  we  forget  the  auspicious  moment  when 
we  first — now  many  years  since — made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  that  most  nimble,  youthful  pulpit  athlete. 

*  There  is  now  an  excellent  edition  of  his  sermons,  published 
by  Mr.  Nichol,  in  the  "  Library  of  Standard  Puritan 
Divines." 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE,  493 

He  was  one  of  the  early  Puritans — one  of  the  reign 
of  Queen  Elizabeth,  mentioned  by  Marsden,  with 
Udall  and  Peniy ;  he  was,  from  the  hints  of  his 
memorialist,  old  Thomas  Fuller,  only  saved  from 
their  doom  by  the  special  protection  of  Lord 
Burleigh,  accorded  to  him,  no  doubt,  from  his  family 
ties  with  a  large  baronial  family  in  Leicestershire. 
Udall  and  Penry  were  of  more  worthless  extraction, 
and,  therefore,  fitting  food  for  the  gallows  and  the 
gaol.  But  Henry  Smith  was  of  the  very  Praetorian 
band  of  Puritans  ;  he  ran  a  brief  course  of  faithful- 
ness, and  his  words  ran  very  nimbly.  We  apprehend 
few  of  the  Puritans  of  that  age  had,  in  so  eminent 
a  degree,  the  blessing  of  Naphthali.  »"  He  was  a  hind 
let  loose,  and  he  gave  goodly  words."  His  was 
specially  the  eloquence  that  "  makes  straight  paths 
for  its  feet."  No  knotty  nor  perplexed  question,  nor 
discussion,  could  ever  induce  him  to  turn  aside. 
When  the  Strand  was  a  wide  street  compared  to 
what  we  see  it  now,  and  St.  Clement  Danes  a  very 
different  church,  it  was  thronged  to  listen  to  the 
intense  earnestness  of  this  youthful  Puritan, — for  he 
died  young.  Let  us  read  together  some  illustra- 
tions of  the  method  he  adopted  in  dealing  with  the 
conscience,  and  pressing  Scripture  home  upon  it. 
Thus  he  exclaims  on  the  text,  "  Many  are  the  afflic- 
tions of  the  righteous,  but  tJie  Lord  delivereth  him  out 
of  them  all :  " — 

"  This  is  the  anchor  of  the  righteous  ;  as  he  looks  upon 
his  troubles,  the  promise  cometh  in  like  a  messenger  from 
Christ,  (while  he  is  praying  and  weeping)  and  saith,  The 
Lord  will  deliver  thee  out  of  all.  Then  he  resolveth  like 
Nehemiah,  and  saith,  Shall  such  a  man  as  I  fly  ?     Shall 


494      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

such  a  man  as  I  recant?  If  I  be  faint  in  the  day  of  ad- 
versity, Solomon  saith,  *Thy  strength  is  small;'  as  if  he 
should  say,  I  was  never  strong,  but  did  counterfeit  like 
Demas.  If  I  want  comfort  in  trouble,  Solomon  saith,  *A 
good  conscience  is  a  continual  feast'  As  if  he  should  say, 
that  I  have  not  a  good  conscience,  if  I  have  not  comfort 
in  the  Cross.  Therefore,  I  will  wait  the  Lord's  leisure, 
because  Esay  saith,  Faith  maketh  no  haste.  I  will  not  break 
his  bands ;  because,  then,  I  am  like  the  heathen.  I  will 
not  flatter  the  judge  ;  because  Solomon  saith  it  is  in  vain. 
I  will  not  betray  the  cause ;  because  God  hath  appointed  it 
to  try  me.  I  will  not  offend  my  brethren  ;  because  Paul 
had  rather  die  than  do  so.  I  will  not  charge  my  conscience  ; 
because  it  can  vex  me  more  than  their  bands.  I  will  not 
turn  from  my  profession  ;  because  I  learned  it  of  God,  and 
vowed  to  leave  all  for  it,  in  the  day  that  I  was  baptized  a 
Christian.  Though  my  friends  tempt  me,  like  Job's  wife ; 
though  my  flesh  flatter  me,  like  Eve;  though  my  perse- 
cutors would  bribe  me,  like  Balaac;  though  those  which 
suffer  with  me  should  revolt  for  fear,  yet  I  will  be  as 
Joshua,  which  stood  alone ;  and  as  Elkana  was,  instead  of 
children,  to  Hannah,  so  Christ  shall  be  instead  of  comfort, 
instead  of  wealth,  and  health,  and  liberty  to  me.  For 
many  were  the  troubles  of  Joseph  ;  and  the  Lord  delivered 
him  out  of  all:  many  were  the  troubles  of  Abraham,  and 
the  Lord  delivered  hi?n  out  of  all :  many  were  the  troubles  of 
David,  and  the  Lord  delivered  him  out  of  all :  many  were 
the  troubles  of  Job,  and  the  Lord  delivered  him  out  of  all : 
therefore,  he  can  deliver  me  out  of  all.  But  if  he  do  not, 
(saith  Sidrach,  Misaac,  and  Abednego)  yet  we  will  not  do 
evil  to  escape  danger :  because  Christ  hath  suffered  more 
for  us.  Therefore,  if  I  perish,  I  perish,  saith  Hester.  She 
was  content  that  her  life  should  perish  :  but  if  my  purse 
suffer,  my  money  doth  but  perish  :  if  my  body  be  imprisoned, 
my  pleasures  do  but  perish :  and  who  can  tell  when  he 
hath  suffered  that  which  is  appointed?     Therefore,  God 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  495 

saith,  When  I  see  convenient  time,  I  will  execute  judgment. 
Not  when  thou  doest  think  it  a  convenient  time.  Therefore, 
saith  David  to  the  Lord,  In  thee  do  I  trust  all  the  day  :  that 
is,  if  He  come  not  in  the  morning,  He  will  come  at  noon  ; 
if  He  come  not  at  noon,  He  will  come  at  night ;  at  one  hour 
of  the  day  He  will  deliver  me  :  and  then,  as  the  calm  was 
greater  after  the  tempest  than  it  was  before,  so  my  joy  shall 
be  sweeter  after  tears  than  it  was  before.  The  remem- 
brance of  Babylon  will  make  us  sing  more  joyful  in  Sion. 
"  Thus  Moses  describeth  the  journey  of  the  righteous,  as 
if  they  should  go  thorow  the  sea,  and  wilderness,  as  the 
Israelites  went  to  Canaan.  Look  not  for  ease  nor  pleasure 
in  your  way,  but  for  beasts,  and  serpents,  and  thieves  :  until 
you  be  past  the  wilderness,  all  is  strait,  and  dark,  and 
fearful ;  but  as  soon  as  you  are  thorow  the  narrow  gate,  all 
is  large,  and  goodly,  and  pleasant,  as  if  you  were  in  Paradise. 
Seeing,  then,  your  kingdom  is  not  here  look  not  for  a 
golden  life  in  an  iron  world ;  but  remember  that  Lazarus 
doth  not  mourn  in  heaven,  though  he  suffered  pains  on 
earth  ;  but  the  glutton  mourneth  in  hell,  that  stayed  not 
for  the  pleasures  of  heaven.  To  which  pleasures  the  Lord 
Jesus  bring  us,  when  this  cloud  of  trouble  is  blown  over 
us.     Amen." 

Again,  from  the  text,  Almost  thou  persiiadest  me 
to  be  a  Christian. 

"  Is  this  altogether  like  Paul  or  like  Festus  ?  Not  at  all. 
Now,  if  we  be  almost  Christians,  let  us  see  what  it  is  to  be 
almost  a  Christian.  Almost  a  son,  is  a  bastard  ;  almost 
sweet,  is  unsavoury  ;  almost  hot  is  lukewarm,  which  God 
spueth  out  of  His  mouth.  Rev.  iii.  16.  So  almost  a  Chris- 
tian, is  not  a  Christian,  but  that  which  God  spueth  out  of 
His  mouth.  A  Christian  almost  is  like  a  woman  which 
dieth  in  travail ;  almost  she  brought  forth  a  son,  but  that 
almost  killed  the  mother   and  the  son  too.      Almost  a 


496      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

Christian,  is  like  Jeroboam,  which  said,  *  //  is  too  far  to  go 
to  J^erusalem  to  worships  and  therefore  chose  rather  to 
worship  calves  at  home. 

"  Almost  a  Christian  is  like  Micah,  which  thought  himself 
religious  enough,  because  he  had  gotten  a  priest  into  his 
house.  Almost  a  Christian  is  like  the  Ephraimites,  which 
could  not  pronounce  Shibboleth,  but  Sibboleth.  Almost  a 
Christian  is  like  Ananias,  which  brought  a  part,  but  left  a 
part  behind.  Almost  a  Christian  is  like  Eli's  sons,  which 
polled  the  sacrifices ;  like  the  fig  tree,  which  deceived 
Christ  with  leaves  ;  like  the  virgins,  which  carried  lamps 
without  oil ;  like  the  willing  unwilling  son,  which  said  he 
would  come  and  would  not.  What  is  it  to  be  born  almost 
If  the  new  man  be  born  almost,  he  is  not  born.  What  is  it 
to  be  married  almost  into  Christ  ?  He  which  is  married  but 
almost  is  not  married.  What  is  it  to  offer  sacrifice  almost  ? 
The  sacrifice  must  be  killed,  or  ever  it  can  be  sacrificed. 
He  which  gives  almost,  gives  not,  but  denieth.  He  which 
believeth  ai?nost,  believeth  not,  but  doubteth.  Can  the 
door  which  is  but  almost  shut  keep  out  the  thief?  Can 
the  cup  which  is  but  almost  whole  hold  any  wine?  Can 
the  ship  which  is  but  almost  sound  keep  out  water? 
The  soldier  which  doth  but  almost  fight,  is  a  coward. 
The  physician  which  doth  but  almost  cure,  is  a  slubberer. 
The  servant  which  doth  but  almost  labour,  is  a  loiterer.  I 
cannot  tell  what  to  make  of  these  defectives,  nor  where  to 
place  them,  nor  unto  what  to  liken  them.  They  are  like 
unto  children  which  sit  in  the  market-place,  where  there  is 
mourning  and  piping,  and  they  neither  weep  nor  dance,  but 
keep  a  note  between  them  both  ;  they  weep  almost,  and 
dance  almost.  Believest  thou  almost  ?  Be  it  unto  thee 
(saith  Christ)  as  thou  believest.  Therefore,  if  thou  believest 
thou  shalt  be  saved — if  thou  believest  almost,  thou  shall  be 
saved  almost.  As  when  a  pardon  comes  while  the  thief 
hangs  upon  the  gallows,  he  is  almost  saved,  but  the  pardon 
doth  him  no  good.     So  he  which  is  almost  a  Christian, 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  497 

ahnost  zealous,  almost  righteous,  which  doth  almost  love, 
almost  believe,  shall  be  almost  saved ;  that  is,  if  he  had  not 
been  a  Christian  altogether,  he  should  not  be  damned. 
Thus  every  man  is  a  Christian  almost,  before  he  be  a 
Christian  altogether.'^ 

Yes,  there  are  two  admirable  men  not  very  often 
referred  to — Henry  Smith-  and  Robert  Robinson — 
both  in  their  way  apostolic  men  ;  they  are  models 
of  perspicuous  force  and  of  ready  clearness.  If  we 
desired  that  our  words  should  flow  like  a  torrent, 
we  would  study  Henry  Smith  ;  if  we  desired  the 
style  of  calm  persuasion,  of  quaint  and  concentrated 
power,  we  would  read  and  study  Robert  Robinson. 
Henry  Smith  is,  every  way,  one  of  the  happiest 
representatives  of  the  genius  of  the  old  Puritan 
pulpit  ;  while  Robinson,  alas !  alas  !  was  a  sort  of 
passionless  farmhouse  Abelard.  They  both  spoke  to 
the  multitude  ;  recoiling  from  all  mystic  questions, 
eminently  they  kept  the  high-road.  Robinson's 
sentences  have  more  the  ring  and  sound  of  the 
hammer,  and  the  accompanying  spark  ;  Henry 
Smith's  have  more  of  the  trumpet,  the  tone  of  the 
soldier,  the  conflict,  and  the  clash  of  the  field. 
Robinson  did  not  so  much  preach  to  you  as  enter 
into  conversation  with  you,  and  his  sermons,  although 
so  impressive  for  the  pulpit,  would  have  been  as 
impressive  if  spoken  by  the  fireside.  Smith  ran 
nimbly  along  like  a  prophet  of  the  Lord,  sounding 
an  alarm  upon  the  way,  and  bringing  himself  into 
immediate  personal  relations  with  the  souls  of  men. 
These  men  have  no  place  in  estimation  by  the  great 
masters  of  the  pulpit ;  but  if  we  rightly  understand 
what  a  model  should  be,  and  study  these  men,  we 

32 


498      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

shall  be  far  more  able  teachers  than  if  we  give  our 
days  and  nights  to  Jeremy  Taylor,  or  South,  to 
Barrow,  or    even  to   Hall. 

Yes,  Robert  Robinson,  of  Cambridge,*  was  a 
remarkable  man,  of  whom  Robert  Hall,  his  illustrious 
successor,  said,  "  He  had  a  musical  voice,  and  was 
master  of  all  its  intonations  ;  he  had  wonderful  self- 
possession,  and  could  say  what  he  pleased,  when  he 
pleased,  and  how  he  pleased."  With  few  advantages 
of  education  in  early  life,  from  an  unhappy  and 
neglected  childhood,  and  bound  apprentice  to  the 
not  very  distinguished  profession  of  hair-dresser — 
although  the  profession  which  gave  Jeremy  Taylor 
to  the  bench  of  bishops,  Tenterden  to  the  woolsack, 
and  Arkwright  to  the  manufactures  of  England — he 
made  himself  a  perfect  and  accomplished,  although 
never  an  elegant  scholar.  What  he  was  as  an  orator 
the  eulogy  of  Mr.  Hall  has,  in  some  measure,  indi- 
cated. In  truth,  his  style,  and  the  topics  upon 
which  he  employed  it  were  the  counterparts  of  each 
other.  He  was  a  sort  of  William  Cobbett  in  the 
pulpit  ;  he  was  a  bishop  of  barns  and  fields  ;  yet 
he  handled  the  most  grave  and  thoughtful  topics, 
and  he  never  handled  them  in  the  pulpit  with  coarse 
nor  vulgar  hands.  Or  he  might  be  called  the 
Warburton  of  the  conventicle  ;  unepiscopal,  uneccle- 
siastical,  he  had  much  of  the  rude  scholarly  rugged- 
ness  and  omnivorous  variety  of  free-thinking  delight 
in  heresy  of  that  singular  and  quarrelsome  prelate. 
He  was  impatient  of  any   thoughts    which    ranged 

*  See  "  Miscellaneous  Works  of  Robert  Robinson,"  with 
Memoir,  in  four  vols.  ;  and  "  The  Select  Works,"  in  one  vol. 
By  Rev.  William  Robinson. 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  499 


themselves  above  the  ranks  of  common  sense ;  and 
it  must  be  admitted  that  his  mind  retained  a  con- 
siderable degree  of  that  strength  which  enabled  him 
to  become  the  teacher  of  the  multitudes,  while  he 
raised  himself  above  them.  His  language  was  most 
vigorous,  strongly  imbued  with  Saxon  significance 
and  vitality  ;  but  imagery  in  language  and  mystery 
in  religion  seem  to  have  been  equally  his  contempt. 
He  had  great  power  of  humour  and  satire — more 
of  the  last  than  the  first — and  these  he  did  not 
hesitate  to  employ.  The  gownsmen  of  Cambridge 
frequently  interrupted  his  service  in  a  very  disgrace- 
ful manner  ;  but  they  sometimes,  most  undoubtedly, 
got  the  worst  of  it,  as  appears  from  the  following 
anecdote. 

One  hot  summer's  day,  when  he  was  nearly  in 
the  middle  of  his  sermon,  a  clergyman  fifty  or  sixty 
years  of  age  entered.  Pew  doors  were  thrown  open 
in  vain.  He  walked  to  the  table-pew,  took  his  seat, 
and  began  quizzing,  and  so  disturbing  the  congrega- 
tion, to  the  great  annoyance  of  the  ladies.  Robinson's 
spirit  was  stirred  within  him.  Having  paused  long 
enough  to  regain  thoroughly  the  diverted  attention 
of  the  audience,  he  proceeded  thus  : — "  I  was 
speaking  about  complex  and  simple  ideas,  but  as 
few  are  acquainted  with  logical  terms,  I  will  give 
an  illustration  or  two.  If,  walking  in  the  vicinity 
of  the  India  House,  I  were  to  meet  a  person 
wearing  powder,  and  silver  buckles,  and  carrying  a 
gold-headed  cane,  I  should  have  the  complex  idea 
of  a  wealthy  merchant.  This  would  be  made  up 
of  a  number  of  simple  ideas  ;  "  and  the  peculiarities 
of  a  successful  merchant  were  enumerated.     "Again. 


500      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

suppose  I  were  walking  in  Pell  Mell,  I  might  there 
meet  some  one  wearing  a  cocked  hat,  a  red  coat, 
gold  epaulettes,  etc.,  and  I  should  have  the  complex 
idea  of  an  officer  of  high  rank  in  the  army.  This, 
as  in  the  former  case,  includes  a  number  of  simple 
ideas.  Once  more  :  if  I  were  walking  near  St. 
Paul's,  I  might  see  a  portly  gentleman,  in  a  shovel 
hat,  full-bottomed  wig,  black  coat,  black  silk  stockings, 
silver  buckles," — describing  the  dress  before  him — 
"  and  I  should  have  the  complex  idea  of  a  venerable 
dignitary  of  the  Church  of  England.  As  in  the 
former  cases,  this  complex  idea  would  include  many 
simple  ideas,  the  gentleman,  the  scholar,  the  divine;" 
and  then  followed  an  eloquent  description  of  the 
good  minister  of  Jesus  Christ.  "  But,  my  friends, 
you  may  have  forgotten  the  text.  I  will  repeat  it  : 
'  Judge  not  according  to  outward  appearance,  but 
judge  righteous  judgment.'  "  Fixing  his  keen  eye 
on  the  stranger  in  the  table-pew,  he  began  to  reverse 
the  picture,  and  describe  impertinence  and  folly  in 
a  black  dress.     The  intruder  vanished  in  haste. 

Robinson,  moreover,  was  a  tolerably  successful 
farmer,  and  as  for  some  time  the  guaranteed  income 
from  his  church  was  £\2  per  annum,  we  will  rejoice 
if  he  turned  his  husbandry  to  good  account.  He 
was,  moreover,  a  very  voluminous  writer ;  and,  as  a 
historian,  his  researches  were  very  extensive.  We 
have  often  been  surprised  that  a  man  so  able,  so 
laborious,  so  self-denying,  and  gifted,  should  be  con- 
signed to  so  much  obscurity.  It  is  true,  he  was 
a  heretic,  a  Sabellian,  or  something  like  it.  The 
author  of  that  sweet  hymn,  sung  by  the  whole  Church, 
"  Come,  thou  Fount  of  every  blessing," 


VARIATIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  501 

he  was  far,  in  his  later  years,  from  possessing  a 
sound  faith.  Moreover,  we  have  said,  his  sermons 
were  preached,  for  the  most  part,  in  barns  and 
cottages.  Yet  we  have  heard  men,  and  men  of 
power,  declare  they  would,  for  all  practical  purposes, 
exchange  the  style  of  Robert  Hall  for  that  of 
Robert  Robinson ;  and  others,  again,  that  they  would 
rather  talk  like  him  than  like  any  master  of  pulpit 
eloquence.  But  his  "  Notes  on  Claude,"  and  the 
"  History  of  Baptism,"  and  the  "  Ecclesiastical  Re- 
searches," must,  we  suppose,  be  doomed  to  the  vault 
of  rare,  and  forgotten,  but  valuable  books. 

He  was  born  at  Swaffham,  in  Norfolk,  the  8th 
of  October,  173$.  He  was  awakened  to  a  know- 
ledge of  God,  and  interest  in  a  religious  life,  by  a 
powerful  sermon  of  George  Whitefield.  He  then 
attended  the  ministries  of  Whitefield  and  Wesley. 
Dr.  Gill,  John  Guise,  and  William  Romaine  were 
also  among  his  most  cherished  teachers.  These  men, 
however,  perhaps,  could  not  have  satisfied  him  long. 
He  soon  began  himself  to  preach  in  villages.  In  this 
he  was  encouraged  by  that  singular  piece  of  eccle- 
siastical eccentricity,  John  Berridge.  Robinson  highly 
valued  him  ;  and,  indeed,  while  the  clergyman  was 
considerably  inferior  to  the  young  convert  in  the 
breadth  and  build  of  his  mind,  they  were  very  much 
alike  in  a  certain  rugged  coarseness  of  mind  and 
character  ;  but  Robinson  was  constantly  availing 
himself  of  all  resources  for  mental  furniture,  whether 
talking  with  a  day-labourer,  or  translating  Saurin, 
studying  Greek  and  Latin,  or  attending  to  the 
economy  of  a  farm-yard.  The  first  days  of  his 
religious   life   were    passed    among   the    Methodists. 


502      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

He  very  soon,  however,  became  a  Baptist,  and  in 
1759  he  received  an  invitation  to  become  the 
minister  of- the  congregation  in  Cambridge,  but  con- 
tinued on  trial  for  two  years,  and  did  not  settle  in 
Cambridge  until  1761. 

He  continued  throughout  his  life  a  thorough 
Dissenter,  and  was  wont  to  ridicule,  we  think  with 
a  somewhat  graceless  severity,  the  observances  of 
the  Established  Church.  "  Really,"  he  says,  "  when 
I  compare  the  little  cheap  decorations  of  Reformed 
Churches  with  the  masterpieces  of  Italy,  our  gaudy 
days  with  their  grand  processions,  our  beggarly 
imitations  of  their  pontifical  magnificence,  I  call 
theirs  pomp,  ours  poverty.  They  are  nature  in  the 
theatre  of  the  metropolis;  we  are  strollers  uttering 
bombast,  in  cast-off  finery,  in  a  booth  at  a  fair."* 
The  satire  is  neither  true  nor  kind  ;  but  the  writer 
of  the  satire  was  honest.  He  had  many  overtures 
made  to  him  from  Church  dignitaries  after  the 
appearance  of  his  "  Plea  for  the  Divinity  of  Christ," 
but  he  resisted  all  ;  and  the  best  sermons  of  their 
day  continued  to  be  delivered  in  barns,  or  meeting- 
houses little  better  than  barns. 

His  expositions  of  Scripture  were  usually  remark- 
ably felicitous,  very  plain  and  lucid.  Thus  we  have 
before  us  a  popular  rendering  of  a  criticism  upon 
the  text,  "  Skin  for  skin,  yea,  all  that  a  man  hath  will 
he  give  for  his  life^ 

"  Imagine  one  of  these  primitive  fairs.     A  multitude  of 
people,  from  all  parts,  of  different  tribes  and  languages,  in 

*  But  the  Church  of   England  in    Robinson's  day  was  a 
marvellously  different  thing  from  that  we  know. 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  503 

a  broad  field,  all  overspread  with  various  commodities  to  be 
exchanged.  Imagine  this  fair  to  be  held  after  a  good 
hunting  season,  and  a  bad  harvest.  The  skinners  are 
numerous,  and  clothing  cheap.  \Vheat,  the  staff  of  life,  is 
scarce,  and  the  whole  fair  dread  a  famine.  How  many 
skins  this  year  will  a  man  give  for  this  necessary  article, 
without  which  he  and  his  family  must  inevitably  die  ? 
Why,  each  would  add  to  the  heap,  and  put  skin  upon  skin, 
for  all  the  skins  that  a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  life. 
Imagine  the  wheat-growers,  of  which  Job  was  one,  carrying 
home  the  skins,  which  they  had  taken  for  wheat.  Imagine 
the  party  engaged  to  protect  them  raising  the  tribute,  and 
threatening  if  it  were  not  paid  to  put  them  to  death. 
What  proportion  of  skins  would  these  merchants  give,  in 
this  case  of  necessity  ?  Skin  upon  skin,  all  the  skins  that 
they  have  will  they  give  for  their  lives.  The  proverb  then 
means,  that  we  should  save  our  lives  at  any  price.  Let  us 
apply  it  to   ourselves."  * 

Most  of  these  sermons  were  addressed  to  villagers 
engaged  in  the  occupations  of  farmhouse,  and 
country  life.  Such  a  congregation  vi'ould,  we  may- 
suppose,  very  keenly  appreciate  the  exercise  on 
early  rising.  The  following  extract  is  lengthy,  but 
it  is  perfectly  beautiful,  in  the  succession  of  sugges- 
tions and  pictures  it  calls  to  the  eye.  The  text  of 
the  preacher  gives  the  refrain  of  each  paragraph. 

"  Let  us  look  about  us,  and  take  notice,  at  least,  of  some 
of  the  beauties  of  nature  in  a  morning,  for  the  heavens 
declare  the  glory  of  God,  the  firmament  sheweth  his  handy 
work,  and  day  uttereth  speech.  How  incomparably  fine  is 
the  dawning  of  the  day,  when  the  soft  and  stealthy  light 
cpmes  at   first  glimmering  with  the   stars,  and   gradually 

•  "  Village  Sermons." 


504      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

eclipses  them  all !  How  beautifully  fitted  to  excite  our 
attention  is  the  folding  and  the  parting  of  the  grey  clouds, 
drawn  back  like  a  curtain  to  give  us  a  sight  of  the  most 
magnificent  of  all  appearances,  the  rising  of  the  sun  !  How 
rich  the  dew,  decking  every  spire  of  grass  with  coloured 
spangles  of  endless  variety  and  inexpressible  beauty  ! 
Larks  mount  and  fill  the  air  with  a  cheap  and  perfect  music, 
and  every  bush  and  every  tree,  every  steeple  and  every 
hovel,  emits  a  cooing  or  a  twittering,  a  warbling,  or  a 
chirping,  a  hailing  of  the  return  of  day.  Amidst  so  many 
voices,  shall  man  be  dumb  ?  Surely  a  good  man  must  say, 
My  voice  also  shall  thou  hear  in  the  morning,  O  Lord. 

"  It  is  in  the  morning,  remarkably,  that  the  ox  knoweth 
his  owner,  and  the  ass  his  master's  crib.  Then,  if  ever,  man 
feels  himself  the  monarch,  and  to  him  who  rises  first,  all 
domestic  animals  pay  their  homage.  One  winds  and  purrs 
about  him,  another  frisks  and  capers  and  doth  all  but  speak. 
The  stern  mastiff  and  the  plodding  ox,  the  noble  horse  and 
the  harmless  sheep,  the  prating  poultry  and  the  dronish  ass, 
all  in  their  own  way  express  their  joy  at  the  sight  of  their 
master ;  he  is  a  god  to  them,  for  the  eyes  of  all  wait  on  hi?n, 
and  he  giveth  them  their  meat  in  season.  It  is  to  these 
animals  that  the  prophet  sends  us  for  instruction,  and  from 
their  behaviour  to  us  he  would  have  us  learn  our  duty  to 
God.  Let  us  observe  how  much  these  creatures  contribute 
to  our  ease  and  comfort  through  life  ;  let  us  remark  that  we 
owe  them  all  they  look  to  us  for ;  let  us  acknowledge  the 
debt,  and  our  inability  to  discharge  it  without  the  supplies 
of  Providence ;  let  us  address  our  prayers  and  praises  to 
that  good  Master  in  heaven,  whose  stewards  we  have  the 
honour  to  be  ;  let  us  lay  up  for  this  great  family,  who  have 
neither  storehouse  nor  barn ;  let  us  supply  them  with  a 
liberal  hand ;  and  for  wisdom  and  prudence  to  perform  all 
these  duties,  let  us  resolve  with  the  psalmist,  Aly  voice  shall 
thou  hear  in  the  morning,  O  Lord.  In  the  morning  will  I 
direct  my  grayer  tmto  thee,  and  will  look  up. 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  505 

"  When  man  walks  abroad  in  a  morning,  every  sense  is 
feasted,  and  the  finest  emotions  of  an  honest  and  benevolent 
heart  are  excited.  It  is  next  to  impossible  to  be  sour  or 
dull.  Above,  the  spacious  canopy,  the  tabernacle^  or  tent 
for  the  sun,  in  a  thousand  clouds  of  variegated  forms, 
glowing  with  colours  in  every  conceivable  mixture,  skirted 
and  shaded  with  sulky  mists,  afford  a  boundless  track  of 
pleasure  to  the  eye.  Around,  the  fragrant  air,  perfumed 
by  a  variety  of  flowers,  refreshes  his  smell.  He  snuffs  the 
odour,  and  tastes,  as  it  were,  in  delicate  mixtures,  the  sours 
and  the  sweets. 

"  The  village  pours  forth  its  healthful  sons,  each  with  his 
cattle  parting  off  to  his  work,  with  innocence  in  his 
employment,  a  ruddy  health  in  his  countenance,  and  spirits 
and  cheerfulness  in  his  address,  that  make  him  an  object 
of  envy  to  a  king.  Here  the  sly  shepherd's  boy  surveys  and 
plots  for  his  flock,  and  there  the  old  herdman  tales  and 
talks  to  his  cattle,  and  loves,  patting  their  flanks,  to  chant 
over  the  history  of  every  heifer  under  his  care.  And  have 
I  only  nothing  to  do  in  this  busy  scene  :  have  I  nothing 
to  say  among  so  many  voices  ?  Am  I  a  man,  and  have  I 
no  pleasure  in  seeing  the  peace  and  plenty,  the  health  and 
happiness  of  my  fellow-creatures  ?  Have  I  no  good  wishes 
for  them  ?  O  Lord,  iti  the  morning  will  I  direct  my  prayer 
unto  thee,  and  will  look  up. 

"  Should  we  make  our  observations  on  a  different  season 
of  the  year,  on  the  morning  after  a  tempestuous  night,  in 
which  the  howling  winds  had  torn  up  our  timbers  by  the 
roots,  overset  our  tottering  chimneys,  and  carried  half  the 
thatch  of  our  cottages  away ;  or  in  which  our  sheep  lay 
buried  in  drifts  of  snow,  and  the  other  cattle  were  deprived 
of  all  their  green  winter  meat ;  or  in  which  our  rivers  had 
swelled  into  floods,  blown  up  the  banks,  laid  all  our 
meadows  under  water,  covered  the  very  ridges  of  our  com, 
threatened  the  lives  of  all  our  flock,  and  destroyed  the  hope 
of  man;   in  all  these,  and  in  all  other  such  cases,  the 


506      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

perfections  of  God  are  displayed,  the  emotions  of  men  and 
Christians  excited,  and  the  language  of  the  text  enforced, 
My  voice  shall  Ihou  hear  in  the  morning,  O  Lord,  in  the 
morning  will  T  direct  my  prayer  unto  thee,  and  will  look 
up:'  * 

The  following  most  characteristic  letter  gives  an 
idea  of  the  mingled  industry,  humour,  and  roughness 
of  the  man  ;  but  we  suppose  few  ministers  could 
give  such  an  account  of  the  spending  of  one  day. 
It  is  addressed  to  Henry  Keene,  Esq.,  of  Walworth. 

"  Old  Friend — You  love  I  should  write  folios :  that 
depends  upon  circumstances,  and  if  the  thunder-storm  lasts 
it  will  be  so :  but  what  a  sad  thing  it  is  to  be  forced  to 
write  when  one  has  nothing  to  say.  Well,  you  shall  have 
an  apology  for  not  writing, — that  is  a  diary  of  one  day. 

"Rose  at  three  o'clock — crawled  into  the  library — and  met 
one  who  said,  '  Yet  a  little  while  is  the  light  with  you : 
work  while  ye  have  the  light — the  night  cometh  when  no 
man  can  work — my  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work.' 
Rang  the  great  bell,  and  roused  the  girls  to  milking — went 
up  to  the  farm,  roused  the  horse-keeper — fed  the  horses 
while  he  was  getting  up — called  the  boy  to  suckle  the  calves, 
and  clean  out  the  cow-house — lighted  the  pipe — walked 
round  the  gardens  to  see  what  was  wanted  there — went  up 
to  the  paddock  to  see  if  the  weanling  calves  were  well — 
went  down  to  the  ferry  to  see  whether  the  boy  had  scooped 
and  cleaned  the  boats — returned  to  the  farm — examined 
the  shoulders,  heels,  traces,  chaff,  and  corn  of  eight  horses 
going  to  plough — mended  the  acre- staff — cut  some  thongs, 
whip-corded  the  boys'  plough-whips — pumped  the  troughs 
full — saw  the  hogs  fed — examined  the  swill-tub,  and  then 
the  cellar — ordered  a  quarter  of  malt,  for  the  hogs  want 

*  "  Village  Sermons." 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  507 

grains,  and  the  men  want  beer — fi'led  the  pipe  again, 
returned  to  the  river,  and  bought  a  lighter  of  turf  for  dairy 
fires,  and  another  of  sedge  for  ovens — hunted  up  the  wheel- 
barrows and  set  them  a  trundling — returned  to  the  farm, 
called  the  men  to  breakfast,  and  cut  the  boys'  bread  and 
cheese,  and  saw  the  wooden  bottles  filled — sent  one  plough 
to  three  roods,  another  to  the  three  half  acres,  and  so  on — 
shut  the  gates,  and  the  clock  struck  five — breakfasted — set 
two  men  to  ditch  the  five  roods — two  more  to  chop  sads, 
and  spread  about  the  land — two  more  to  throw  up  muck  in 
the  yard — and  three  men  and  six  women  to  weed  wheat — • 
set  on  the  carpenter  to  repair  cow-cribs,  and  set  them  up 
till  winter — the  wheeler  to  mend  up  the  old  carts,  cart- 
ladders,  rakes,  &c.,  preparatory  to  hay-time  and  harvest — 
walked  to  the  six  acres,  found  hogs  in  the  grass — went  back, 
and  sent  a  man  to  hedge  and  thorn— sold  the  butcher  a  fat 
calf,  and  the  suckler  a  lean  one — the  clock  strikes  nine — 
walked  into  barley-field — barleys  fine,  picked  off  a  few  tiles 
and  stones,  and  cut  a  few  thistles — the  peas  fine,  but  foul ; 
the  charlock  must  be  topped — the  tares  doubtful ;  the  fly 
seems  to  have  taken  them — prayed  for  rain,  but  could  not 
see  a  cloud — came  round  to  the  wheat  field — wheats  rather 
thin,  but  the  finest  colour  in  the  world — sent  four  women 
on  the  shortest  wheats — ordered  one  man  to  weed  the  ridge 
of  the  long  wheats,  and  two  women  to  keep  up  rank  and 
file  with  him  in  the  furrows — thistles  many — blue-bottles  no 
end — traversed  all  the  wheat-field — came  to  the  fallow-field 
— the  ditches  have  run  crooked — set  them  straight — the 
flag-sads  cut  too  much — rush-sads  too  little,  strength  wasted, 
show  the  men  how  to  three-corner  them — laid  out  more 
work  for  the  ditchers — went  to  the  ploughs — set  the  foot  a 
little  higher,  cut  a  wedge,  set  the  coulter  deeper,  must  go 
and  get  a  new  mould-board  against  to-morrow — went  to 
the  other  plough — picked  up  some  wool  and  tied  over  the 
traces — mended  a  horse-tree,  tied  a  thong  to  the  plough 
hammer — went  to  see  which  lands  wanted  ploughing  first — 


5o8      THE  VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

sat  down  under  a  bush — wondered  how  any  man  could  be 
so  silly  as  to  call  me  reverend — read  two  verses,  and  thought 
of  His  loving-kindness  in  the  midst  of  His  temple,  gave 
out,  *  Come  all  harmonious  tongues/  and  set,  Mount 
Ephraim,  tune — rose  up — whistled — the  dogs  wagged  their 
tails,  and  on  we  went — got  home — dinner  ready — filled  the 
pipe — drank  some  milk — and  fell  asleep — woke  by  the 
carpenter  for  some  slats,  which  the  sawyer  must  cut — the 
Reverend  Messrs.  A,  in  a  coat,  B.  in  a  gown  of  black,  and 
C.  in  one  of  purple,  came  to  drink  tea,  and  settle  whether 
Gomer  was  the  father  of  Celts,  and  Gauls,  and  Britons,  or 
only  the  uncle — proof  sheet  from  Mr.  Archdeacon — cor- 
rected it — washed — dressed — went  to  meeting,  and  preached 
from  The  end  of  all  things  is  at  hand,  be  ye  sober  and  watch 
unto  prayer — found  a  dear  brother  reverence  there,  who  went 
home  with  me,  and  edified  us  all  out  of  Solomon's  song, 
with  a  dish  of  tripe  out  of  Leviticus,  and  a  golden  candle- 
stick out  of  Exodus.  Really  and  truly  we  look  for  you 
and  Mrs.  Keene,  and  Mr.  Dore  at  harvest,  and  if  you  do 
not  come,  I  know  what  you  all  are.  Let  Mr.  Winch  go 
where  he  can  better  himself.  Is  not  this  a  folio?  And 
like  many  other  folios  ?   .    .   .  R.Robinson."* 

There  was  much  in  the  affability  of  Robinson 
most  pleasant  and  commendable.  We  read  that  it 
was  a  maxim  with  him  that  if  a  child  lisped  to 
give  you  pleasure,  you  ought  to  be  pleased.  The 
smallest  expression  of  kindness  from  villagers,  if  but 
the  lighting  of  his  pipe,  was  followed  by  tokens  of 
his  esteem.  When  preaching  in  barns,  he  delighted 
to  visit  his  poor  brethren  ;  he  not  only  was  pleased 
to  regale  himself  with  their  brown  bread  and  black 
tea,  but  he  took  care  that  his  poor  friends  should 

*  "  Memoirs  of  Robert  Robinson.''     By  George  Dyer,  1796. 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  509 

lose  nothing  by  their  attentions.  He  often  used  to 
say,  "  "When  a  poor  person  shows  anxiety  to  ad- 
minister to  your  comfort,  do  not  interrupt  him  ;  why 
deprive  him  of  the  pleasure  of  expressing  his  friend- 
ship ? "  After  his  death,  among  his  papers  was 
found  a  Hst  of  memoranda,  or  Httle  commissions  to 
be  executed  by  him  when  in  London,  such  as  the 
following  : — "  B.'s  petitions  ;  gown  for  poor  M.  ; 
M.  M.'s  son  to  be  seen  ;  H.  wishes  Mrs.  H.  to  be 
merciful ;  W.  thinks  his  son's  wages  are  too  small ; 
Watts's  Hymns  for  T.  H.  ;  Testament  for  C."  He 
appeared  nowhere  to  more  advantage  than  among 
the  poorest  of  his  flock.  Each  Sunday  he  devoted 
the  intervals  betwixt  morning  and  evening  service  to 
friendly  intercourse,  and  being  fond  of  a  pipe,  though 
he  was  no  drinker,  he  used  to  get  his  poor  people 
round  him  at  an  old  widow-woman's  house  near  the 
meeting  ;  here  he  gratified  himself  in  hearing  their 
distresses,  in  answering  their  difficulties,  and,  to  the 
best  of  his  power,  in  relieving  their  wants.  Robin- 
son's brethren  often  found  fault  with  him  for 
attending  to  farming.  He  was  not  very  courteous 
in  his  mode  of  replying  to  their  condemnations  of 
him.  "  Godly  boobies,"  he  would  say,  "  too  idle, 
many  of  them,  to  work  ;  too  ignorant  to  give 
instruction  ;  and  too  conceited  to  study  ;  spending 
their  time  in  tattling  and  mischief;  are  these  the 
men  to  direct  my  conduct,  to  censure  my  ministry?" 
He  died  in  Birmingham,  whither  he  had  travelled 
to  preach  for  Dr.  Priestly.  He  had  been  somewhat 
depressed  in  health  ;  but  the  night  before  his  death 
he  rallied,  and  seemed  to  have  regained  his  usual 
vivacity. 


510      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

"Soon  after  eleven  o'clock  he  retired  to  rest,  and  was 
found  in  the  morning  dead,  the  bed-clothes  being  unruffled, 
the  features  not  distorted,  the  body  almost  cold.  The 
physicians  pronounced  the  disease  of  which  he  died  to  be 
angina  pectoris.  His  wish  had  been  to  die  'softly, 
suddenly,  and  alone.'  " 

The  extracts  we  have  given  will  sufficiently  indi- 
cate the  style  of  Robinson  and  the  structure  of  his 
mind.  We  have  said  the  architecture  of  his  mind  was 
of  the  plain  barn-door  style.  His  writings  abound 
in  illustrations  of  plain,  simple,  and  unaffected  grace  ; 
but  his  sentences  can  never  be  called  graceful.  They 
go  right  forward  to  their  object,  and  they  always 
reach  it,  and  their  directness  produces  a  pleasing 
impression  on  the  mind  ;  but  this  is  all.  And  the 
style  is  irresistible,  but  by  the  force  of  simplicity. 
Every  paragraph  is  laden  with  convictions.  It 
modifies  the.  admiration  we  might  feel  to  know  that 
he  had  a  manner  of  shocking  coarseness,  in  which 
he  delighted  to  express  himself;  when  he  speaks  of 
Calvin,  Cobbett  could  not  use  language  more  gross  : 
"  Nothing  shocks  me  so  much  as  to  see  the  Calvinist 
Baptists  sing  psalms  round  the  tomb  of  that  bloody 
Calvin,  who  burnt  Servetus;"  but  he  did  not  indulge 
in  this  kind  of  speech  in  the  pulpit.  Yet  we  find  it 
easier  to  commend  the  architecture  of  his  mind,  than 
the  fulness,  warmth,  or  sufficiency  of  his  faith. 

We  suppose  Robinson  would  be  regarded  as  an 
obscure  pulpit  light  ;  yet  all  his  works  and  sermons 
are  prized  highly  by  those  who  know  them  at  all,  his 
hymns  also,  especially  "  Mighty  God  I  while  angels 
bless  Thee,"  etc. 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  every  age,  our  own  as  well 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  511 

as  others,  has  its  obscure  pulpit  lights,  lights  which 
shed  out  their  mild  but  useful  radiance — power  in 
weakness.  Again  we  say,  we  are  too  much  imposed 
upon  by  brilliant  effects.  Moreover,  if  we  were  an 
ill-tempered  man,  and  if  we  did  not  think  such  a 
chapter  would  do  more  harm  than  good,  we  could 
easily  write  a  lengthy  one  on  the  pulpit  charlatans 
of  all  ages — and,  perhaps,  sacredly  it  may  be  done 
yet — men  who  have  commanded  vast  audiences  by 
making  the  pulpit  the  vehicle  for  giving  notoriety  to 
their  own  nonsense. 

Horace  Bushnell  somewhere  says  that  forty 
hundred  pulpits — he  might  have  said  forty  thousand 
— are  wondering  that  there  are  no  more  eloquent 
ministers  for  them,  to  which  it  has  been  truly  replied 
that  eminent  excellence  is  exceptional :  we  might  as 
well  wonder  that  every  village  has  not  a  Mozart,  a 
Pericles,  a  Raphael,  or  a  Thorwaldsen  ;  and  we  must 
remember  that,  if  great  gifts  be  rare,  as  rare  are  the 
audiences  which  are  able  to  appreciate  them.  But 
the  pulpit  has  had  in  all  ages  some  fine  illustrations 
of  "  power  in  weakness,"  like  William  Rhodes,  a 
village  minister  of  Damerham,  in  Wiltshire,  of  whom 
Charles  Stanford  has  given  so  beautiful  and  instruc- 
tive a  memorial.  There  have  been  many  of  these 
nervous  creatures.  Caleb  Morris,  for  a  long  time  a 
very  rare  and  eminently  acceptable  minister  in 
London,  was  one  of  these  ;  his  nervousness  drove 
him  from  the  pulpit,  and  his  ministrations,  highly 
prized  by  a  few,  were  delivered  in  his  drawing-room. 
It  is  told,  however,  that  in  the  very  last  year  of  his 
life,  when  preaching  to  a  crowded  congregation  in 
Milford  Haven,  he  was  sbout  to  conclude  the  service, 


512      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

and  had  closed  the  Bible,  when  a  minister  who  had 
just  arrived,  standing  at  the  bottom  of  the  chapel, 
in  one  of  the  side  aisles,  exclaimed,  "  Mr.  Morris,  go 
on  a  little  longer,  sir;  I  have  only  just  come  in  ;  I 
have  had  a  service  in  the  country,  but  I  wanted  to 
hear  some  words  from  you  ;  go  on  for  another  half- 
hour,  sir;"  and,  thus  invoked,  Mr.  Morris  opened  the 
Bible  and  went  on  for  another  half-hour  or  longer. 
He  was  one  of  the  obscure  lights,  but,  we  believe, 
every  whit  as  great  a  man  as  Horace  Bushnell  ;  not 
many  brilliant  pulpit  luminaries  would  have  been 
equal  to  that  unexpected  call. 

Obscure  lights  1  Do  our  readers  know  that  re- 
markable anecdote  in  the  life  of  the  great  John 
Owen  ?  We  all  know  that  he  was  one  of  the  most 
mighty  and  influential  theologians  of  his  own  age, 
and  still  of  unquestioned  eminence  in  ours.  A  cir- 
cumstance once  fixed  his  mind,  which  was  full  of 
agitations  and  perplexities.  It  was  a  troubled  time, 
and  his  course  was  undetermined  ;  he  was  harassed 
by  fears  and  despondency.  He  was  residing  at  the 
Charter  House,  in  London,  when  he  accompanied  a 
cousin  to  Aldermanbury  Church,  to  hear  the  cele- 
brated Edward  Calamy  ;  but,  finding  that  he  was 
not  preaching  that  day,  it  was  suggested  that  they 
should  go  to  St.  Michael's,  Wood  Street,  to  hear 
another  yet  greater  celebrity,  Thomas  Jackson.  Owen 
was  indifferent,  and  preferred  to  stay  where  he  was. 
A  plain  country  minister  was  the  preacher.  His 
fervent  prayer  first  arrested  the  agitated  hearer,  and 
he  was  then  further  impressed  by  the  text:  "Why 
are  ye  fearful,  oh  ye  of  little  faith  ?  "  The  sermon 
was  a  plain   one,  and   Owen  never   knew  who   the 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  513 

preacher  was  ;  but  it  dispelled  the  clouds,  and 
silenced  the  agitations  in  that  one  hearer's  mind.  It 
fixed  his  convictions  ;  it  restored  his  health,  which 
had  been  impaired  by  severe  mental  depressions. 
The  power  of  that  sermon  sent  him  forth  on  the  road 
of  future  usefulness  with  "  the  loins  girt  and  the 
lamp  burning,"  to  be  for  a  long  course  of  years  one 
of  the  mOot  eminent  preachers  of  his  time. 

Obscure  lights  !  "  He,  being  dead,  yet  speaketh." 
We  read  of  the  effects  of  a  sermon  heard  on  one 
continent  bringing  forth  extraordinary  fruit  upon 
another.  Dr.  Edwards  Park  mentions  the  instance 
of  a  person  who  heard  the  great  and  good  John 
Flavel  preach  at  Dartmouth— dear  old,  beautiful 
Dartmouth — the  lovely  sequestered  old  village  tovvn 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Dart,  one  of  England's  loveliest 
rivers,  where  it  opens  to  the  sea  at  the  foot  of 
Dartmoor,  in  sweet  sunshiny  Devonshire.  This  man, 
when  a  lad  of  fifteen  years  of  age,  heard  Flavel  preach 
from  the  text,  "  If  any  man  love  not  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  let  him  be  Anathema  Maranatha;"  he  became 
a  member  of  the  train-band  of  Cromwell  ;  he  was 
present  at  the  beheading  of  Charles  the  First ;  he  had 
some  acquaintance  with  Cromwell.  When  persecu- 
tion came,  he  crossed  to  America,  and  there,  in 
Massachusetts,  he  passed  through  many  experiences  ; 
he  became  a  farmer  at  Middlesborough,  in  the  New 
World  ;  there,  sitting  in  his  field,  or  at  the  door  of 
his  farm,  when  he  was  one  hundred  years  of  age,  he 
heard  the  words  come  back  to  him  as  he  had 
listened  to  them  eighty-five  years  before.  He  re- 
membered the  appearance  of  the  solemn  preacher 
rising  to   pronounce  the  benediction   before  he  dis- 

33 


514      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 


missed  the  assembly,  and  exclaiming  in  piteous  tones, 
"  How  shall  I  bless  the  whole  assembly  when  every 
person  in  it  who  loveth  not  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
is  Anathema  Maranatha  ? "  He  was  alarmed  at  the 
reminiscence,  and  particularly  at  the  fact  that  no 
minister  had  blessed  him  during  all  those  years.  He 
pondered  that  closing  remark  of  Flavel's;  and,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  second  century  of  his  life,  he  gave 
evidence  that  he  was  worthy  to  be  enrolled  among 
the  members  of  the  Church  written  in  heaven,  and 
bore  his  testimony,  for  fifteen  years  afterwards,  as  to 
the  power  of  truth  over  his  mind.  We  have  stood 
by  Flavel's  tomb  in  old  Dartmouth  Church  ;  we  have 
drunk  of  the  water  of  Flavel's  well,  from  whence  he 
drank  in  his  daily  walk,  with  the  inscription  over  it, 
"  Whoso  drinketh  of  this  water  shall  thirst  again,  but 
whoso  drinketh  of  the  water  that  I  shall  give  him 
shall  never  thirst."  But  what  a  charming  little 
illustrative  legend  this  is  of  the  old  Dartmouth  well, 
and  the  persecutions  of  the  beautiful  old  Nonconform- 
ist preacher  of  those  sweet  sermons  on  the  "  Foun- 
tain of  Life,"  and  that  pleasant  book  on  the  "  Mystery 
of  Providence,"  which,  surely,  the  above  incident  seems 
to  illustrate ! 

We  will  confess  that  we  are  not  fond  of  boy- 
preachers,  yet  some  have  proved  themselves  ;  nor 
may  we  forget  that  boys,  by  rare  exceptions,  have 
proved  themselves  to  be  consecrated  Samuels,  and 
Davids  ;  it  is  probable  that  Isaiah,  "  in  the  year 
when  King  Uzziah  died,"  when  he  saw  the  Lord, 
and  when  he  commenced  the  work  of  his  ministry, 
was  about  the  same  age  as  Charles  Spurgeon  was 
when    he    entered    on   his    pastorate  in  London, — 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  515 

nineteen, — although  otir  friend  had  been  a  preacher 
years  before.  Among  such  boy-preachers  the  name 
of  Thomas  Spencer  of  Liverpool  has  not  yet  been 
forgotten  ;  but  it  is  now  only  a  tradition  of  a 
ministry  so  bright,  and  so  brief;  this  instance  is 
almost  unrivalled  in  the  annals  of  pulpit  oratory. 
His  earnestness,  his  simplicity,  the  exceeding  beauty 
of  his  personal  appearance, — all  these  combined  with 
a  manly  energy  of  manner,  and  majestic  grace  in 
delivery,  to  make  him,  before  he  was  twenty  years  of 
age,  the  most  attractive,  powerful,  and  useful  minister 
in  Liverpool.  In  the  presence  of  five  thousand 
persons,  he  laid  the  foundation  stone  of  his  new 
church  ;  and,  very  shortly  after,  on  one  Monday 
afternoon,  he  was  drowned,  while  bathing  in  the 
Mersey  ! 

"So  Lycidas  sank  low,  but  mounted  high, 
Through  the  dear  might  of  Him  who  walked  the  wave  !  " 

Not  many  times  has  such  a  thrill  passed  through 
the  city  of  his  ministrations,  or  the  Church  of  his 
adoption,  as  that  which  was  felt  on  the  announce- 
ment of  his  death.  A  party  of  ministers  was  assem- 
bled in  the  drawing-room  of  the  eminent  Rev.  Dr. 
Stewart.  Spencer  was  expected,  and,  amidst  the 
conversation  about  him,  wonder  was  expressed  at  his 
delay  ;  sounds  were  heard  in  the  streets,  and  little 
companies  of  awe-struck  groups  were  seen  convers- 
ing ;  Dr.  Stewart  threw  up  the  window,  and  inquired 
what  was  the  matter .''  and  the  reply  was  given, 
"  Spencer  is  drowned ! "  Can  we  conceive  the 
startled  dismay  of  that  company  }  It  was  Monday 
afternoon,  but  the    outlines  of  the  sermon  for  the 


5i6      THE    VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER. 

following  Sunday  were  found  in  his  pocket.  There 
was  something  truly  prophet-like  in  his  abrupt  appear- 
ance and  transit.  James  Montgomery  embalmed  the 
memory  of  the  precocious  orator,  and  youthful  saint, 
in  some  sweet  verses. 

"  The  loveliest  star  of  evening's  train 
Sinks  earliest  in  the  western  main, 

And  leaves  the  world  in  night  ; 
The  brightest  star  of  morning's  host, 
Scarce  risen,  in  brighter  beams  is  lost. 
Thus  sank  his  form  on  ocean's  coast; 

Thus  sprang  his  soul  to  light ! 

"  Oh  Church  to  whom  that  youth  was  dear, 
The  angel  of  thy  mercies  hfear, 

Behold  the  path  he  trod, 
A  milky  way  through  midnight  skies  ; 
Behold  the  grave  in  which  he  lies  ; 
E'en  from  this  dust  thy  prophet  cries, 
*  Prepare  to  meet  thy  God  ! ' " 

And  it  was  said  that  even  from  the  dust  the 
young  prophet  did  cry,  and  that  many  conversions 
resulted  from  the  quickening  of  the  conscience  in  the 
town  by  the  death  of  the  young  preacher.  Thus 
really,  sometimes,  miracles  have  been  wrought  by  the 
dead,  seeming  to  renew  the  story  of  the  miracle 
wrought  by  the  bones  of  Elisha. 

Some  men  have  even  died  in  the  pulpit.  The 
beautiful  and  beloved  John  Fletcher  of  Madeley  did 
not  die,  but  he  was  smitten  with  death  in  the  pulpit ; 
staggering  down  the  stairs,  as  he  passed  the  Com- 
munion Table,  he  stretched  out  his  arms,  exclaim- 
ing, "  Now  I  am  going  to  throw  myself  beneath 
the  wings   of   the   cherubim  !  "     They  were  almost 


VARIETIES  OF  CLERICAL  LIFE.  517 

the  last,  if  not  the  last  words  he  uttered.  Glorious 
deaths  there  have  been  !  Remember  the  death  of 
Dr.  Beaumont,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  our 
English  recent  pulpit  orators  ;  his  death  seems  to 
us  the  height  of  the  moral  sublime,  fine  in  effect,  but 
how  much  finer  in  fact!  His  death  arrests  the  heart 
and  the  eye  like  a  martyrdom.  Standing  there, 
all  his  feelings  inflamed  with  the  ardour  of  a  lofty 
devotion,  inspired,  and  ready  for  the  spring  of  sacred 
eloquence,  his  memory  ranging  amongst  the  fields 
of  selectest,  and  most  holy  imagery,  and  all  his 
passions  on  fire  with  love  to  his  Saviour,  and  to 
man,  he  stood  before  the  vast  and  waiting  crowd, 
ready  for  his  word  'of  power.  Ah  !  they  did  not 
see  how  the  heavens  were  parting,  and,  softly  radiant, 
the  angel  of  death — no  terrible  presence,  no  stern- 
browed,  darkly  clad,  and  unkind  form — was  rapidly 
approaching !  they  did  not  know  that  all  around 
him,  before  their  eyes,  there,  the  airs  were  becoming 
chill,  chill,  chill,  that  rings  of  gelid  cold  were  con- 
tracting round  the  loved  and  honoured  form  ;  they 
did  not  see  over  the  pulpit  the  pressing  figures  of 
angel  forms,  loved  old  relatives,  departed  into  light, 
whose  strong  sympathies  were  attracted  by  that 
hour,  and  who  whispered  in  their  spirit  language, 
"  He  is  coming  to  us."  The  spiritual  throng  was 
all  unseen,  the  angel  who  struck  the  blow  all 
unseen  ;  they  saw  only  that  raised  eye  ;  they  only 
heard  that  voice,  and  those  were  the  last,  the  very 
last  words  ever  to  roll  from  those  lips  their  melody 
on  this  side  of  the  nev/  world. 

*'  Tb^e,  while  the  first  archangel  sings, 
He  hides  his  head  behind  his  wings  I  " 


5i8      THE   VOCATION  OF  THE  PREACHER, 

It  is  done !  hush,  hush,  rolHng  voices  !  there  is 
a  sound  of  "  harpers  harping  with  their  harps."  He 
has  already  burst  into  the  infinite  ;  the  blaze  of  the 
unveiled  is  around  him  ;  he  has  been  wafted,  on  the 
wings  of  earthly  music  and  devotion,  from  the 
temple  crowded  with  worshippers,  to  the  dear,  dear 
city  where  there  is  no  temple,  nor  need  of  the  light 
of  the  sun.  Hush,  hush,  shrieking  voices  !  wail  not, 
oh  widow,  oh  child,  over  the  fallen  form  ;  there 
is  nothing  to  scream  over  here.  This  is  the  true 
glory !  The  prophet  had  only  passed  from  Nebo  to 
Pisgah.  The  brave  heart  had  only  burst  its  cere- 
mental  shroud  and  gone  home. 

"  God,"  says  the  quaint  old  Thomas  Fuller,  "  sends 
His  servants  to  bed  when  they  have  done  their 
work," 

"  He  lifts  me  to  the  golden  doors. 

The  flashes  come  and  go  ; 
All  heaven  bursts  the  starry  floors 

And  strews  its  hghts  below, 
And  deepens  on,  and  up  ;  the  gates 

Roll  back,  and  far  within 
For  me  the  Heavenly  Bridegroom  waits, 

To  make  me  pure  of  sin. 
The  Sabbaths  of  eternity, 

One  Sabbath  deep  and  wide, 
A  light  upon  the  shining  sea. 

The  Bridegroom  and  the  Bride !  " 

Surely  the  reader  will  acquit  the  writer  of  affecta- 
tion in  thinking  that  such  verses  found  a  fine 
realisation  in  such  a  death  of  such  a  man. 


INDEX. 


Abraham  and  the  stranger,  i8o. 
Action  is  eloquence,  476. 
Actor  V.  preacher,  8- 1 7. 
"Adam  Bede,"  Dinah  of,  456-458. 
Adams,  Puritan  : — 

■  a  forgotten  worthy,  3S7,  410. 

career  and  works,  390. 

a  preacher,  390-393- 

age  of,  393,  410. 

— —  aphoristic  words,  393. 

metliod  of  treating  a  text,  397. 

compared  with  Herbert,  399. 

style,  411,412;  illustrations  of, 

391,  395.  396,  398,  399.  400, 

401. 
Affirmative,  the  preacher  should  be, 

254- 

Africaner,  the  chief,  469. 

Age,  a  glorious,  410. 

Ages  : — 

pulpit  in  the  early,  17-28. 

preachers  of  the  mediaeval,  93. 

tales  of  the  middle,  102-106. 

preachers  of  the  middle,   108, 

109. 

Allegory,  use  of,  187-189;  evil  use 
of,  199-201. 

America,  fiction  of,  443-445,  454. 

Analogies,  wisdom  in  the  perception 
of,  168. 

"Analogy,"  critique  on  Butler"s, 
164,  165. 

Analogy,  work  of,  163,  173  ;  an  in- 
genious. 241. 

Andersen,  Hans  C,  quoted,  178. 


Andrews,  Dr.  Edward  '.— 

characteristics,  209,  210. 

eccentricities,  210,  211. 

personal  appearance,  211. 

compared  with  Hamilton,  212. 

-style   of   preaching,    212-214, 

216,  217,  224. 

sermons,  213. 

■  contrasted  with  others,  217. 

varied  learning,  218. 

•  a  preacher  only,  219. 

questionable  taste,  219-221. 

•  Andrewsana,  222,  223. 

textual  method,  225-227. 

style,  illustrations  of,  214,  215, 

216,  222,  224,  227,  229,  230. 
Andrews,  Lancelot,  405-408 
Anecdote  : — 
Asiatic  cholera,  discoverer  of, 

254- 

Assist,  St.  Francis  of  I. 

Barnes,  Albert,  of,  240. 

Betty,  a  voice  calling,  254. 

•  Binney,  Dr.,  of,  243. 

Breeze,  Sammy,  of,  424. 

Butler,  Bishop,  of,  166. 

clergyman,  reproving  a,  499. 

Elias,    John,     and     Matthew 

Wilks.  240. 

father,  of  an  ancient,  44. 

Hall,  Robert,  of.  17,  433. 

head,  the  forgotten,  211. 

Hume  and  Butler,  of,  165. 

Huntingdon     and      Rowland 

HUl,  of,  332,  333. 


520 


INDEX. 


Anecdote  : — 

"  Iron  you,  I'll,"  342. 

Jay,  \\  illiam,  of,  244. 

lamplighter,  a  London  (note), 

305- 

ministers  soon  forgotten,  206. 

mud,  pinching,  15. 

number,  the  mystic,  146,  147. 

Owen,  John,  of,  512. 

parsons,  the  two,  235,  236. 

"  People,  spare  the,"  259. 

preacher  and  his  gown,  57,  58. 

Rogers,  Samuel,  by,  242. 

sermon-box,  the,  235. 

sermons,  the  stolen,  306-308. 

soul?  do  you  think  of  your,  61. 

Taylor,  Father,  of,  243. 

Wells,  James,  of,  243. 

Angels,  151. 

Anthony,  St.,  and  the  cobbler,  179. 

Ardour,  invocation    to    missionary, 

28. 
Aretinus,  I  ID. 

Ashworth,  John,  referred  to,  66. 
Athanasius,  21,  22. 
Athens,  Paul  preaching  at,  182. 
Audiences,  the  preacher's  two,  46-48. 
Augustine,  St.,  22-28;  preaching  of, 

446  ;  quoted,  44. 

"  Bank  of  Faith,"  character  of,  328- 

332. 
Bargeman  and  minister,  481. 
Basil,  St.,  style  of,  22. 
Beattie,  Dr.,  on  the  sermon,  235. 
Beaumont,  Dr.,  death  of,  517. 
Beelzebub  and  his  hogs,  316. 
•Believer,  the  humble  rustic.  376. 
Bellew^  Rev.  J.,  quoted,  182. 
Bernard,  Richard,  criticism  on,  371- 

373- 
Bernard,  St.,  quoted,  99. 
"  Betty,"  the  voice  saying,  254. 
lishop,  the  frozen,  493. 
Blessed,  the  word,  417. 
Blind  and  lame,  an  allegory,  200. 
Book    V.    preacher,  38-40  ;   and  the 

preacher,  48.  • 

"Borrowed  !  alas,  it  v^'as,"  326.  327. 
Box,  the  sermon-,  235. 
Boy-preachers,  514. 


Breeches,  beseeching  God  for,  330 

332. 
Breeze,  Sammy,  424-427. 
Bridges,  Rev.  C,  quoted,  43,  44. 
Browning,  Robert,  on  preaching,  445. 
Burgess,    Daniel,    instance    of   the 

style  of,  367. 
Burgess,  J.,  queer  divisions  by,  316. 

Calvinism  and  English  society,  339. 

Calvinists,  a  prophet  of  high,  336. 

Cariyle  on  the  stage,  15,  16. 

Cartwright,  Peter,  34. 

Cathedral,  meditataions  in  a,  29,  30. 

Catholic  home  missions,  61-65. 

Chalmers,  Dr.,  256,  257. 

Chapel,  service  in  a  Cornish,  463, 
464. 

Charles  the  Second  and  sermon- 
reading,  232;  and  Dr.  South,  310, 

3"- 

Chat  Moss  and  George  Stephenson, 

173.  175- 
Chorus,  a  wonderful,  418. 
Christ,  the  believer's  magnet  is,  467. 
Christian,  almost  persuaded  to  be  a, 

495-. 
Christian  ?  which  is  the  real,  339-341. 
Christianity,    manifestations   of    its 

power,  18. 
Chrysostom,  St.,  24. 
Church  in  danger,  the,  294. 
Church,  vision  in  an  empty,  31-33. 
Clarkson  and  Wilberforce,  anecdote 

of,  61. 
Clemens,  style  of,  19,  20. 
Clergyman,  reproving  a,  499. 
Climax,  a  master  in,  273. 
(,louds,  408. 

Coarseness,  illustrations  of,  316. 
Coleridge,    H.,   and  Dr.   Andrews, 

211,  212. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  quoted,  476. 
Commentators,    two    Puritan,    378. 

379- 
Conceits,  an  age  of,  402 ;  illustrations 

of,  402-407. 
Concubine,  the  Levite  and  his,  325. 
Congregational. sm  v.  sacerdotalism, 

68. 
Conscience,  142 ;  peace  with,  362. 


JNDEX 


521 


Consciences,  we  have  good,  325. 
Convert,  an  aged,  513. 
Cornwall,  a  service  in,  463,  464. 
Coster,  Francis,  story  by,  IC2. 
Cromwell,  Dr.  South  on,  310. 
Cross,  St.  Paul's,  men  of,  353. 
Crowns,  many,  203. 
Cuckoo  and  the  nightingale,  318. 
Culture,  need  of,  45. 

Darkness,  power  of,  203. 
Darning-needle,  parable  of  the,  178. 
David  and  Shimei,  323. 
Dead,  a  group  of  illustrious,  489. 
Death,  275,  278,  279. 
Denunciation,  power  of,  303. 
Description,  worthless,   182-185  ;    a 

burlesque,   185. 
Devil,  a  dialogue  with  the,  345. 
Diabolus,  Frater,  105,  106. 
Dilemmas,  pulpit,  242-244. 
Discoveries,  happy  guesses,  168. 
Diver,  Schiller's,  253. 
Divines,  a  group  of  departed,  206- 

209. 
Divines,  works  of  Puritan,  38 1.  386, 

388. 
Dogma,  resting  on,  147,  150. 
Donne,  Dr.,  characteristics  of,  400. 
Dramatist,  the  preacher  should    be 

a,  469-471- 
Dust,  396. 
Duty-faith,  doctrine  of,  341. 

Eagle,  way  of  the,  189-194. 
Ear,  importance  of  the,  17. 
Edom,  Christ  coming  from,  406. 
Edwards,  Jonathan  : — 

delineation  of,  450. 

and  style,  471. 

powerful  oratory  of,  476-478. 

Elias,  John,  of  Wales,  431. 

Eliot,  George,  clerical  portraits  of, 

456. 
Eloquence : — 

pulpit,  247,  248. 

French  school  of,  365. 

a  shopkeeping,  366. 

action  is,  476. 

Emerson  on  preaching,  462. 
Entreaty,  an  afifectionate,  135. 


Ephrata,  birth  of  Christ  at,  404. 
Epitaph,     William     Huntingdon's, 

333. 
Eras,  a  preacher's  three,  366. 
Evangelist,    the,    57,  58  ;    type    of 

man  for,  66,  67. 
Evans,  Christmas  : — 

quoted,  421-423. 

power  and  eloquence,  432. 

power  of  parable,  433. 

method  with  texts,  434. 

■ •  trial  of  the  witnesses,  435. 

Satan  in  dry  places,  437-440. 

Everard,  Jolin,  of  Kensington,  382. 
Existence,  how  noble  is  your,  293. 
Eye,  power  of  one,  433. 

Faber,  Father  : — 

as  a  preacher,  72-78,  82-85. 

a  mystic,  76. 

aphorisms.  80. 

sermons,  character  of,  81,  82. 

style,  illustrations  of,    78,   80, 

87,  90. 
Faith  :— 

toy  armour  and   weapons  of, 

70,  71. 

and  rationalism,  152,  153, 

or  works  ?  3 1 9. 

"  Father,  forgive  them,"  403. 
Fiction,    age    of,    441  ;    pulpit   in 

modern,  442-445. 
Fire?  who  can  dwell  with,  11 3- 116; 

let  us  have  plenty  of,  240. 
Flavel,  John,  preaching  of,  513. 
Fletcher  of  Madeley,  death  of,  516. 
Foster,  John,  quoted,  29,  57. 
Fox,  C.  J.,  oratory  of,  244. 
Friars : — 

power  of  the  preaching,  98,  99. 

style  of,  loi,  102,  104. 

references  to  names  of,  107. 

Fuller,  A.,  and  Toller,   contrasted, 

485-487. 
Funeral,  an  imposing,  335. 

Gauden,  Dr.,  sermon  by,  317. 
Gerasimus  and  the  lion,  468. 
Geyser,  the  religious,  60. 
Gibbon  on   the   rise  of  preaching, 
460. 


522 


INDEX, 


God  :— 

the  preacher  a  witness  for,  37, 

rich  in  mercy,  87. 

charged  foolishly,  214. 

glorious  the  city  of,  295. 

judgments  of,  315. 

in  a  circle,  409. 

Goethe,  an  image  by,  304. 

Gough,  John,  oratory  of,  473,  475, 

479,  480.  _ 
Gould,    Baring,    referred    to,    93  ; 

quoted,  96,  102. 
Gousset,  Father,  quoted,  188. 
Gown,  the  preacher  and  his,  57-59. 
Grosart  on  Richard  Bernard,  371  ; 

quoted,  376. 
Guarric  of  Igniac  quoted,  96,  102. 
Guthrie,  Dr.,  imagery  of,  202,  203. 

Hall,  Robert,  on  preaching,  44  ; 
anecdotes  of,  17,  433. 

Hallelujah  !  what  a,  215. 

Hamilton,  Dr,  J.,  quoted,  175. 

Hawkins,  Parson,  story  of,  454- 
456. 

Hearers  and  preachers,  175-177; 
mollusc,  449,  450. 

Heaven,  276-278;  names  written  in, 
401. 

Helps,  Sir  Arthur,  quoted,  16,  206. 

Hennell,  Miss,  and  Butler's  "Ana- 
logy," 165. 

Herbert  and  Puritan  Adams,  399. 

Hill,  Rowland,  and  W.  Huntingdon, 
332,  333. 

Hooker  and  Milton,  386. 

Hour,  the  last,  274. 

Hugo,  Victor,  referred  to,  443. 

Hume  and  Butler,  165. 

Humour  v.  vulgarity,  344. 

Huntingdon,  Countess  of,  quoted,  7. 

William,  328-333- 

Ice,  an  eagle  caught  in  the,  420. 

Illustration,  use  of,  186. 

Images  and  fancies,  359. 

Imagination  : — 

prerogative    of  the   preacher, 

162. 
illustrations  of  the  use  of,  1 78- 

185.  I 


Imagination : — 

function  of,  201. 

law  of,  204. 

province  of,  205. 

Incidents,  great  national.  52-55. 
Instinct,  preachingand  religious,  419. 
Instruction,  oral,  249. 
Intellect,  discourse  on  the,  156. 
Irish,  the  minister  and  the,  483. 
"  Iron  you,  I'll,"  342. 

Jacob,  the  good  second  of,  320. 
Jay,  Rev.  VV.,  J.  Wells  on,  343. 
Jericho,  fall  of,  11 6- 119. 
Jerome,  St.,  110-112. 
Jesus,  vision  of  the  Child,  102-104  > 

testimony  of,  216. 
Judgment,  the  last,  297 ;  day  of,  319. 

Kempis,  Thomas  a,  referred  to,  109. 
Kirjath-Sepher,  smiting  of,  383-386. 
Kirwan,  Dean,  as  a  preacher,  286. 
Knill,  Richard,  as  a  preacher,  286. 

Lamplighter,   a  London   (note), 

305- 
"  Lamps,  our,  have  gone  out,"  90. 
Language,  character  of  the  Welsh, 

415-417- 
Latimer,  Bishop,  quoted,  179. 
"Letter,  don't  forget  your  Father's," 

481  ;  a  singular,  506-508. 
Lile  : — 

Christian  and  Roman,  20. 

foes  to  religious,  68. 

greatness  and  littleness  of,  160. 

resurrection  unto,  227. 

bread  of,  344. 

Lights,  obscure  pulpit,  51 1-5 14. 

Lines,  diverging,  175. 

Lion,  the  grateful,  468. 

"  Logic,"  Whately's,  remark  on,  143. 

"Lot's  wife,  remember,"  327. 

Lytton,  Lord,  sermons  by,  442,  443. 

Macaulay,  Lord,  anecdote  of,  146, 

147. 
Macdonald,  George,  quoted,  464. 
Magnet,  effects  of  the  discovery  of 

the,  467. 
Man,  the  unstable,  391;  a  definition 

of,  464. 


INDEX. 


523 


Manshire,  marshalling  the  subjects 

of,  373-375- 
Many  called,  few  chosen,  96-98. 
Martineau,  James,  quoted,  164. 
Massillon    compared    with    James 

Parsons,  267-269. 
Maxey,  Anthony,  36 1. 
Mediocrity,  useful  hints  to,  472,  473. 
Methodism,  romance  of,  4,  5. 
Minister,  dilficulties  of  the,  6S-70. 
Ministers,  half-way,  344. 
Missionaries,  noble  army   of,    4S9- 

492. 
Missions,  Catholic  home,  61-65. 
Mollusc  hearers,  449,  450. 
Moravian,  the  frozen,  492. 
Morris,  Caleb,  51 1. 
Moule,  M.,  on  Augustine,  26. 
Mystic,  the.  150. 
Mystics,  Puritan,  382. 

Napoleon,  a  saying  of,  201. 
Nature,  analogy  of,  169-172  ;  morn- 
ing beauties  of,  503. 
Neale,  Dr.,  referred  to,  93. 
Neander  quoted,  94,  95. 
Nelson,  John,  7. 
Nervousness,  245,  246. 
New  England,  a  Calvinist  parson  of, 

444. 
Newman,  Dr.  T.  H.  : — 

career  and  works,  122-124. 

characteristics  of  his  preaching, 

124,  128. 

and  F.  Robertson,  132. 

character  of  his  sermons,  134- 

142,  143-145.  148,  149- 
textual  method,   1 36- 140,  156, 

158. 

a  schoolman,  142. 

on  Whately's  "  Logic,"  143. 

on  reasoning,  144. 

humour,  146-148. 

faith  in  dogma,  149. 

not  a  mystic,  150,  151. 

power  and  repose,  152. 

Newmanana,  154-156. 

discourse  on  intellect,  156. 

work  generalised,  158. 

style,  illustrations  of,    128-131, 

13s.  »44,  151.  160. 


No-thing  to  No- where,  171. 
Novelists,   pulpit  characteristics  of, 

445-447.  454- 
Number,  the  mystic,  146,  147. 

Opera,  an  incident  at  the,  16. 
Oratory  :— 

description  of,  264,  265. 

tests  of  popular.  475. 

an  instance  of  powerful,  476- 

478. 
Origen,  style  of,  20. 
"Others,  He  saved,"  85. 
Outlines,  method  exhibited  in,  27S- 

303- 
Owen,  John,  anecdote  of,  512. 
Oxford,  Dr.  Newman  at,  126,  127. 

Padua,  Anthony  of,  108. 
Painting  v.  pulpit,  3  ;  word-,  202. 
Paper  and  the  orator,  247  ;  use  of 

in  the  pulpit,  249. 
Parable,  power  in  the,  433. 
"  Pardons,  I  begs  no,"  224-227. 
Park,     Professor,    an   analogy    by, 

241. 
Parsons,  Rev.  James  :  — 

early  popularity,  261,  262. 

power  of,  262,  263. 

descriptive  scene  of,  264,  265. 

his  three  eras,  266. 

compared  with  Massillon,  267- 

269. 

one-sided  method,  272. 

power  in  climax,  273. 

character  of  sermons,  283-2S8, 

291.  303- 

method  in  outlines,  298-303. 

in  old  age,  304. 

manner  in  the  pulpit,  304-306. 

— — illustrations  of  style,  275,  276, 

278,  279,  2S1,  292,  293,  294, 

295.  297- 

Parsons,  the  two,  235. 

Pastor,  a  real  spiritual,  106. 

Peace,  God  of,  363. 

Peachblossom,  Rev.  Dr.,  12. 

Pew  and  pulpit,  dialogue  between, 
34-36. 

Pitt,  William,  on  Butler's  "Ana- 
logy," 165. 


524 


INDEX. 


Pitt  and  Fox,  speech  of,  contrasted, 

242. 
Plausibility  in  the  pulpit,  249. 
Playfere,  Tliomas,  353  ;  at  St.  Paul's 

Cross,  354,  357,  359,  360. 
Poet  and  preacher,  289. 
Poetical  quotations,  168,    192,  20S, 

234,  244,  253.  257,  293,  296,  33S, 

402,  414,  424,  428,  438,439,  45S. 

4&3,  464,  467,  469,  491,  515,  516, 

518. 
Poetry  : — 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  450. 

Heart's  Song,  The  275. 

Deacon's  Masterpiece.  The,  350. 

Northern  Farmer,  447. 

Whitefield,  453. 

national,  50-53. 

Power,  the  pulpit  a  lost.  461. 
Practical,  power  of  the,  75. 
Praise,  Basil  on,  23. 
Preacher  : — 

and  great  truths,  the,  428. 

and  the  press,  429. 

canon  for  the,  a,  186. 

— —  comfortable,  a,  12,  13. 

descriptive,  the,  201,  202. 

general   and    descriptive,    the, 

.  44,  45- 

life  of  the  popular,  269,  270. 

nervuus,  the,  51 1. 

of  manners,  the,  390-392. 

ordinary  popular,  the,  125,  126. 

portrait  of  a  woman-,  456-458. 

should   be   a   dramatist,    469, 

471. 

standard  for  the,  a,  472. 

V.  book,  38-40. 

two  audiences  of  the,  46-48. 

work  of  the  Romish,  352. 

works  for  the,  472,  473. 

Preachers  : — 

and  modern  fiction,  442,  443. 

boy,  514. 

four  orders  of,  421. 

group  of  great,  206-209. 

hearers  and,  175-177. 

knowledge     of    Scripture    by 

mediaeval,  95-98. 

St.  Pauls  Cross,  at,  353. 

Wales,  of  wild,  413. 


Preaching  : — 

an  analogy  on,  241. 

Browning's  satire  on,  442. 

danger  of  forcible,  270-272. 

Emerson  on,  462. 

essentials  of  successful,  55,  56. 

evangelistic,  57. 

friars,  98,  99;    style  of,    loi, 

102,  104  ;  power  of,  108, 
109  ;    sermons  of.   120. 

Gibbon  on  the  origin  of,  41' o. 

hail-fellow-well-met    style    of, 

318. 

mediaeval,  93. 

modern  method  of,  289-291. 

national   institution  of  Wales, 

the,  414. 

Newman's,  124. 

origin  of,  460. 

reformers,  365. 

various  styles  of  240,  24I. 

V.  walking,  i. 

Press  : — 

and  pulpit,  37-40. 

censorship  needed  for  the,  41. 

preachers  and  the,  429. 

Pride,  unsafeness  of,  400. 
Prisoner,  trial  of  the.  375. 
Prophet,  the  preacher  and  the,  49, 

50. 
Psalmody,  Basil  on,  23. 
Pulpit : — 

Billingsgate  in  the,  309. 

buffoons  of  the,  346,  347. 

coarseness  in  the,  316. 

censor  of  the  press  and.  41,  42. 

death  in  the,  516-518. 

dialogue    between    pew    and, 

34-36. 

dilemmas  in  the,  242-244. 

eloquence,  247,  248. 

early  ages  of  the,  17-23, 

French,  the,  365. 

is  it  worthless  ?  5,  6. 

middle  ages,  in  the,  93,    107, 

108,  109  HI. 
obscure  lights  uf  the,  511-514. 

Parsons,    James,  in    tLe,    304- 

306. 

plausibility  in  the,  249. 

poeiry  and  fiction  in  the,  441 


INDEX. 


525 


Pulpit :— 

power,  a  past,  461. 

reader  of  the,  250. 

rhetoric  in  the,  283-286. 

romance  of  the,  4. 

satire  in  the,  444,  445. 

Sayers,  Tom,  of  the,  310. 

sins  of  the,  366,  367. 

Smith,  Sydney,  on  the,  40. 

tale  of  the,  3. 

Vaughan,  Dr.,  on  the,  36,  40. 

work  of  the  English,  352. 

Puritan  and  modern  commentators, 

371-373-  ,        ,   .       ^ 

Puritan  and  the  French  pulpit,  365. 

Puritanism,  birth  of,  352. 

Puritans,  a  cluster  of,  378,  386-3S8. 

reading  of  the,  377. 

Rationalism  and  faith,  152,  153. 
Ratisbon,  Berthold  of,  107. 
Reader,  the  pulpit,  250. 
Reasoning,    implicit     and    explicit, 

^44-  .         ^     ^ 

Reformers,  preachmg  of,  365. 
Reinhardt  quoted,  45. 
Rhetoric  in  the  pulpit,  283-286. 
Righteous,  many  the  afflictions   of 

the,  493. 
Righteousness,  God's,  194-199. 
Riglitwell,  Raven,  13. 
Robertson,    F.    W.,  Newman  and, 

132. 
Robinson,   Robert : — 

compared  with  H.  Smith,  497. 

characteristics,  498. 

and  the  clergyman,  499. 

farmer  and  author,  500. 

early  religious  life,  501- 

thorough  Dissenter,  502. 

exposition   of    Scripture,  502- 

506. 

a  day's  work,  506. 

and  the  poor,  508. 

death,  509. 

style,  510. 

Rome,  teaching  of  the  Church  of,  76. 
Royal  merchant,  the,  367. 
Ruskin  referred  to,  205. 
Ryland,  Dr.,  and  W.  Huntingdon, 
319- 


"  Safe,  now  I  am,"  240. 

Samson  a  fool,  320. 

Satan  in  dry  places,  437-440. 

Saul  as  a  merchant,  434. 

"  Saved,  we  are  not,"  215. 

''Say  well  and  doe  well,"  354-359 

Sayers,  Tom,  of  the  pulpit,  310. 

Schoolman,  a  modern,  142. 

Scott,  Thomas,  work  and  character, 

237-239- 
Scripture  : — 

and  analogy,  169. 

mediieval     preachers'     know- 
ledge of,  95,  98. 

•  Puritan  dealmg  with,  370. 

Scriptures    and    the    Fathers    and 

Puritans,  379. 
.Sculptor,  anecdote  of  a,  15. 
Segneri,  Father,  112,  119. 
Sentences,  striking,  229 
Sermon  : — 

a  little  bird's,  180 

a  fdiliy,  3I7._ 

fate  of  a  Puritan,  370. 

Neander  on  the,  19. 

Sermons  : — 

Dr.  Newman's,    134-142,   148, 

149. 

James  Parsons',  283-288. 

mediceval,  120. 

stories  of  stolen,  306-308. 

Service,  a  Welsh,  436. 

an  impressive,  463.  464. 

Slielter,  a  safe,  224. 

Shenkin  of  Penrydd,  423. 

Sherman  and  James  VVells,  343. 

Shimei  and  David,  323. 

Ship,  a  woman  like  a,  367-370. 

Sienna,  Bernardine  of,  108. 

"  Signe  and  song,"  404. 

Simple,   John,    preaching    of,    319, 
320. 

Sin,  a  sense  of,  253,  254. 

Skin  for  a  skin,  502. 

Smith.  H.,  of  St.  Paul's  Cross,  353. 

H.,  Puritan,  492,  497. 

Sydney,  on  the  pulpit,  40. 

Socratic  teacher,  a,  472. 

'■  Son,  take  tliou  tliy,"  402. 

Song,  the  Heart's,  275. 

Sorrow,  comfort  in,  fOO. 


526 


INDEX. 


Soul  :— 

Style,  illustrations  of: — 

conflict  for  man's,  292. 

death,  278.  279. 

flight  of  the.  119. 

— —  devil,  dialogue  with  the,  345. 

individuality  of  the,   128-130. 

disciple,  an  old,  225-227. 

Souls,  instinct  for,  2,  6,  59,  61. 

dust,  398. 

South,  Dr.,  coaisenessof,  309,  311- 

duty-faith  doctrine,  341. 

313;  wit  of,  314. 

entreaty,  an  afi'ectionate,  135. 

Southey  quoted,  328. 

existence,   how  noble  is  your. 

Speaker,  the  extempore,  242,  243. 

295- 

Speech,  a  canon  of,  186  ;  power  of, 

exordiums,  324. 

247.  249. 

• faith,  episode  in  a  life  of,  330. 

Spencer,  Thomas,  death  of,  516. 

"  Father,  forgive  them,"  403. 

Stage,  Carlyle  on  the,  15,  16. 

God  charged  foolishly,  214. 

Standard,  a  preacher's,  472. 

God,  city  of,  295. 

Stanley,  Dean,  quoted,  49. 

God,  heavens  declare  the  glory 

Stephen,  death  of,  230. 

of,  503-506. 

Sterne,    Laurence,    illustrations  of, 

God  inexh.austible,  222. 

321-327. 

God  is  a  circle,  409. 

Stories,  vonderful  monastic,  468. 

God,  judgment  of,  315. 

Style,  illustrations  of: — 

God,  man  alone  conscious  of, 

Abraham  and  the  stranger,  1 80. 

222. 

air,  way  of  the  eagle  in  the, 

God  rich  in  mercy,  87. 

189-194. 

God.  righteousness  of,  194-199. 

Andrewsana,  222. 

God,  souls  have  a  call  of,  78. 

angels,  151. 

halleiujah  !  what  a,  215. 

— —  Anthony,  St.,  and  the  cobbler. 

"  He  saved  others,"  85. 

179- 

heaven,  276. 

• Artisan,  the  supreme,  19. 

heaven,  names  written  in.  401. 

Athens,    Paul    preaching    at. 

hell,  a  picture  of,  1 13- 11 6. 

182-185. 

hour,  the  last,  274. 

Beelzebub    driving    his  hogs. 

Jeiicho,  fall  of,  116-119. 

316. 

Jesus,  holy  Child,  102. 

"Behold  where  they  laid  Him," 

"Joseph  is  yet  alive,"  99. 

298. 

judgment,  the  last,  297. 

believer,the  humble  rustic,  376. 

Kirjath-Sepher,     smiting     of, 

breviads,  80,  138. 

383-386. 

Christ,  hatred  and  enmity  to, 

lame  and  blind,  the,  200. 

222. 

Levite  and  his  concubine,  326. 

Christ,  on  the  birth  of,  404. 

life,  greatness  and  littleness  of, 

Christian,  almost  a,  495. 

160. 

Christian  ?  which  is  tiie,  339. 

life,  resurrection  unto,  227-229. 

Church  in  danger,  294. 

lines,  divergent,  175. 

city  of  God,  295. 

man,  the  unstable,  391. 

clouds,  408. 

Manshire,  marshalling  the  sub- 

  Conqueror,  Christ  the,  406. 

jects  of,  373-375- 

conscience,  peace  in  the,  362. 

many  are  called,  96. 

Cromwell,  313. 

memory  and  immortality,  223. 

Cross,  thief  on  the,  300. 

ministers,  half-way,  344. 

darkness?  who  hath  delivered 

missionary  ardour,  invocation 

ns  from,  203. 

to,  28. 

darning-needle,  the,  I "78. 

mountain  and  valley,  400. 

INDEX. 


527 


Style,  illustrations  of : — 

mourning    and    feasting,     the 

house  of,  322. 

Naphthali,  hind  let  loose,  360. 

nature  a  teacher.  loi. 

Newmanana,  154-156. 

"Our  lamps  are  gone  out,"  QO. 

"  Pardons,  I  beL;s  no,"  425-427. 

•  peace,  the  God  of,  363. 

pleasures,  Divine,  20. 

praise,  the  duty  of,  23. 

preaching,    four    methods   of, 

421. 
prisoner,  trial  of  the,  375. 

prophecy,  the  spirit  of,  216. 

psalmody,  23. 

reasoning,  implicit  and  explicit, 

'44- 
— —  rigliteous,    afflictions    of   the, 

493-495- 
Satan  in  dry  places,  437-440. 

"  Saved,  we  are  not,"  215. 

•  "  Say  well  and  doe  well,"  354- 

359-        .         .    ,       o 

sermon,  a  little  bird's,  180. 

— ■ —  shelter,  a  safe,  224. 

Shimei  and  David,  323. 

ships,    women    compared    to, 

368-370. 

"  Signe  and  song,"  404. 

sins,  remembering,  359. 

skin  for  skin,  502. 

"  Son,  take  thou  thy,"  402. 

sorrow,  comfort  in,  400. 

soul,  conflict  for  mans,  292. 

soul,     individuality    of    every 

human,  128-130. 

Stephen,  the  death  of  230. 

Strauss,  rationalism  of,  223. 

"Thankful,  let  us  be,"  399. 

time  and  rivers,  222. 

tongue,  the,  398. 

"  1'ransgressors,  I  beheld  the," 

301. 

truth  and  time,  199. 

voice,  such  a,  395. 

'■  Wife,  remember  Lot's,"  327. 

words,  aphoristic,  393. 

work,  blessedness  of,  347-349. 

world,  without  God  in  the,  364. 

worship  in  winter,  131. 


Style  :  — 

importance  of,  471,  472. 

Old  Testament  proph-jtic,  458, 

459- 

what  should  b°  the  pulpit,  40. 

Swearer,  minister  and  the,  482,45ij. 

Taste,  questionable,  219-221. 
Teacher,  a  Socratic,  480-485. 
'lears,  the  test  of,  43.  44. 
Tennyson  on  the  preacher,  447  449. 
Terror,  preaching  of,  270-273. 
Tertul  ian,  20. 

Text,  method  of  treating  a.  397. 
Texts,  Newman's  method  vvilh,  136- 

140,  156-158. 
"  Thankful,  let  us  be,"  399. 
Theatre  v.  pulpit,  8-14. 
Theology : — 

of  intellect  and  feeling,  56. 

mere  logic  in,  349,  350. 

gospel  of  natural,  464-467. 

Things,  four  wonderful,  iSS. 
Thinker  and  preacher.  451,  452. 
"  'I'hirdly?  what  was,"  243. 
Thirst,  man's  infinite,  451. 
Thtnight,  parabolic  form  of,  177. 
Toller  and  Fuller  contrasted,  485- 

487. 
Tongue,  making  of  the,  398. 
Torshell,  Samuel,  quoted,  376, 
Trnpp,  commentator,  378.  379-381. 
Truth,  an  allegory  on,  199. 
Truths,  dealing  with  great,  428,.  429. 

Uriel,  the  angel,  255. 

V.\UGHAN,  Dr.,  on  the  pulpit,  36, 

40. 
Victoria,   Queen,    and    the    mystic 

number,  146. 
Vieyra,  Anthony  of,  quoted,  loi. 
Voice,  unison  of  the,  38  ;  such  a,  395. 

Wales  : — 

preachers  of  wild,  413. 

Shenkin  of  Penrydd,  423. 

a  group  of,  430. 

John  Elias,  431. 

Warburton  on  prophetic  language, 
458,  459- 


528 


INDEX. 


Wells,  James  : — 

funeral  of,  335. 

prophet     of    high    Calvinists, 

336. 
character  of  his  preaching,  337- 

339-  . 
illustrations   of   his    doctrine, 

339-342. 

on  Sherman  and  Jay,  343. 

humour  of,  343,  345. 

character  of  his  sermons,  346. 

final  review,  349-351. 

style,  illustrations  of,  339,  341, 

344.  345.  347- 
Welsh  preachers,  character  of,  413, 
414. 


Whately,  Archbishop,  quoted,   168, 

169. 
Whitefield,  delineation  of,  453 
Whittier  quoted,  450,  453. 
Wife,  a  ship  like  a,  367. 
Winter,  worship  in,  131. 
Witnesses,  trial  of  the,  435  ;  the  real 

cloud  of,  487-489. 
Words,  aphoristic,  393 
Work,  a    Sabbath  day's,    237-239  ; 

blessedness  of,  347-349. 
Works  useful  for  ministers,  472,  473. 
Worthy,  a  forgotten  Puritan,  389. 

York,  the  Massillon  of,  261,  267. 

Zaccheus,  little,  321. 


